


Thanatos

by skylerSlapdash



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst and Tragedy, Aphrodisiacs, BDSM, Blow Jobs, Cunnilingus, Dom Belle (Disney), F/F, F/M, Gaslighting, Heartless Sex, Horror, Mind Control, Multi, Oops, Oral Sex, Orgy, Other, Parasites, Possession, Postmodernism, Public Sex, Rough Sex, Sex Toys, Shower Sex, Smut, Surreal, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Uncontrollable Sex Drive, Vaginal Sex, actually this gets serious as it continues, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-02-18 21:30:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 66,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13108902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylerSlapdash/pseuds/skylerSlapdash
Summary: With souls corrupted by darkness, Roxas and Xion find themselves the vanguard of an army eager to replace free will itself with mad sexual desire. Their lives explode into horror and desire. Worlds may live and worlds may die, but no one will escape without a deep and abiding pain. Contains both unabashed smut and unrelenting existential horror. You have been warned.





	1. Lady of the Castle

**Author's Note:**

> This should go without saying, but this is a work of fiction and fantasy. Nothing contained in this story should be taken as a blueprint for a healthy relationship. The fact that I even have to say something like this is nightmarish, but you get an idiot every day that wants their own Christian Grey to psychologically terrorize them.
> 
> Don't be that person. Have some self-respect, and have some respect for other people. Take care!

A low, needful moan tore through the basement of the castle. It was almost loud enough to cast waves through tapestries, to ride vibrations through the stone flooring. The moan woke the boy Roxas, blonde and disheveled, chained to the wall of the castle basement.

First the moan, then pain. The telltale tingle of magically sealed wounds ran up and down his body. No scars, nothing deep enough for that, but before a conscious thought surface he could already feel it in his bones--something had beaten him within an inch of his life.

It was a jury-rigged dungeon that Roxas hung in, on the wall across from a couple of dozen pieces of clutter as if he was just a new piece in a storage room. Roxas wondered if he had seen this place before. Couldn't remember. The fuzziness of the Curaja spell ran through his skin, maybe to his head, or was that whatever hit put him to sleep?

Whatever...hit...put him to sleep...

Another moan ripping through the cluttered basement, and Roxas remembered. Roxas and Xion had ventured into Beast's Castle to hunt for a new Heartless. It was something that Saix said hadn't been seen in untold ages, and would say nothing else about outside of its name:

Possessor.

The second moan was Xion's. Roxas shook against his cold iron restraints, kicked against the brick stone, pushed and tore as the groans and cries echoed through the castle. The tingle of the cure spells faded. He felt a wetness between his right hand and its manacle, the wetness of his own blood. He pulled one hand through, hung painfully for a moment from the other...and remembered that he could've summoned a keyblade and unlocked the both of them.

Oops.

Soon enough he was clothed, healed, and armed with a big hunk of extra-phallic metal to beat his enemies into submission. The black cloak was gone for now. He'd find it. What scared him now wasn't the screams. It was the fact that the screams had  _stopped_.

Roxas hopped up the stack of wreckage, ignoring the muffled sounds beneath his feet--no time for that. Not when Xion's life was at stake.

If he'd paused for just a moment in the basement, he could've listened to the stacks of living furniture stored and muffled in the basement. He could've uncovered a certain flamboyant candelabra, could've watched it look him in the eyes and shout:

"We are, the all of us, imprisoned! Ze mistress, she has gone crazy!"

 

* * *

Heartless are noisy. They warp into existence, yellow eyes blaring, and the world makes a tearing sound as they violate its rules. The silence of Beast's Castle wriggled under Roxas's skin like a parasite. The memories were coming back now, of the two of them walking through the Castle for the umpteenth time in search of the umpteenth garden variety Heartless. That slapping-plastic sound of warping Heartless, a few strokes of Keyblades...the usual noises.

 

Then a little less noise. Roxas turned to make some dumb joke about some dumb Keyblade stunt...and saw Nobody at all. There was only him, silently tearing into Heartless that didn't look any different, not different at all, wondering when he'd see Xion, when he'd see this daring new subspecies Saix had promised.

There was a giggle from behind his back. Metal sound.

Dungeon.

Now Roxas walked up the stairs of the East Wing of Beast's Castle listening for the horrible warping sound of Heartless, hearing a horrible nothing at all. The windows outside were panes of white, the fog fell so thick outside. Roxas stopped beside one to stare. Thick enough to mask all things, nearly, save the strange slinking silhouettes out there. Soldiers? The scraping sound of metal made him wonder. He shivered (an impulse from his old

Somebody, he knew, but it stuck with him all the same) and moved down the hallway, checking each door.

He'd tear the Castle to shreds if that's what he had to do to find Xion. If Xemnas or any of the others complained, he'd lift them by their anime hair and slap them to death with an oversized key.

Friends first. Loves first.Then, maybe, duty. And if Axel complained afterward, uhh...

At the end of the hallway now, Roxas frowned. Ehh. He'd figure that bit out later.

He shoved the door open....

 

* * *

 

 

All at once there was no pain. This was odd, for Xion, who had known pain since she was birthed from the rotten womb of a machine on some floor or another of Castle Oblivion. The pain of unwholeness had haunted her like hunger or thirst.

At once it had ended.

Xion, who had followed a beautiful woman in a yellow dress to a ballroom, stood in a vigilant stance. Who knew here, in this strange world where furniture spoke, what was truly a Heartless? Who, for that matter, knew what was a Nobody? And now the pain hit, and--as always--she pushed it back. Her body was at war with her mind, that deep discomfort branching through her bones like venomous roots, infecting, and...

Later.

Later.

Behind her Roxas had vanished, off to be knocked out and star in the opening segment of this story. The room, a bedroom of some kind, was empty. In theory. And yet something gnawed at her, guided her to a bed, and that ever-present pain of her existence was only a shadow as she threw herself onto the bed, that soft bed, that perfect bed and found it nice enough to stretch out on, her legs and arms sinking pleasantly into the soft mattress.

Softer than anything in the Castle. Almost as soft as the embrace of (she sighed at the thought) Roxas when Axel could not make it and they lay on the ledge of the clocktower, warm in the ever-setting sun, memorizing the contours of their bodies.

Something tickled Xion's cheek, soft as a feather duster. Another something tickled her hand. She gasped, broke into giggles, shifted into shrieks when the tickle turned into a sting.

"I was wondering when we would get visitors from other worlds." The woman in the darkness laughed. Her yellow eyes narrowed with glee. "I was prepared, naturally. I always prepare. One has to do the research." The woman stepped into the light. Dark oak was her hair, falling over a badly torn white and blue dress.

Frantically, Xion turned her head back and forth to see what was stinging her. Strange spherical Heartless stared back at her, gushing indigo darkness, bristling with violet spines that hurt her so badly.

"It's Belle, by the way," said the woman. Faintly, Xion could see shifts in the light around her body. Warps in the World. "Are you alright? You really are a funny girl."

"What did--" she snarled with pain "--you do with Roxas?"

"I hit him over the head with a vase," said Belle, laughing. "Don't worry about that. He will be fine. You, too, will be fine...though my friends on the other side tell me that you're  _not_ fine now. They tell me that you are hurting."

"You didn't answer my question," said Xion. The possessors hit again, and she bit back a scream.

"You can make the hurt stop," said Belle. " _All_  of the hurt, more than these shadows. Can't you feel them around you? The Heartless can smell your need. They wish to...fill it."

Images of Roxas and Axel, unbidden. The possessors rubbed against her body fast, hard, warm.

"Don't fight this, Xion. We--" she coughed "--I know you're tired. I can help. Open yourself to new possibilities. And you know," she added, smirking, "if you're wrong? Roxas will save you. Axel, too."

"Roxas. Axel..." The bodies of the Heartless rubbed against her, back and forth, and her nerves burned strangely. Lust, certainly, but...something more. "I can't," said Xion. "But."

"But?"

"Please," she whispered. The Heartless sank into the membrane of her skin. She felt them deep inside, welcomed them.

"What a lovely girl you are," said Belle, her yellow eyes flaring. "What a lovely little puppet."

Xion wanted to be angry at the insult, felt like she should, and yet...and yet there was nothing in that particular well but an image of fluttering, smiling darkness. Puppet, yes, but...but lovely just as mistress Belle said.

The possessors wrapped around her mind like a comfortable sweater. Xion's hands fell to her pussy as Belle watched hungrily.

"Oh  _yesss_. I'm, oh. Oh, I'm a lovely little puppet," Xion whispered. Soft fuzzy mind...soft wet pussy... "Fuck me."

 

* * *

 

 

Roxas shoved the door open and found her lying in a mess of a bedroom, facing away from him towards the balcony. Her back was fully bare, and his breath caught in his throat when his gaze fell to her small, pale ass. It moved with her as she softly breathed, still facing the balcony. He searched for a word, any word, anything to get him out of this situation.

"Xion, is that you?" he stammered, knowing full well that it was. One night on the inside of the clocktower, nothing too much but their bare bodies in the dark, cuddling, afraid of going too far. He knew the shape of her.

"It's me," she said. She stretched out, accentuating her ass and legs, still not bothering to turn and face him. Roxas's cock rubbed up against his tight leather pants, long and hard. "Roxas. You've come to rescue me?"

"Yeah. We need to get out of here."

"Why?" She turned over and stretched on the bed, her pert breasts bouncing slightly, her eyes closed.

"What?"

"Why should I leave? Why should you? So we can go back to the Castle That Never Was and slave away for nobodies that we don't even understand? No thanks, Roxas." She giggled, patted the bed beside her. "Lie with me."

"Will you leave with me then?"

"Maybe," she teased. "Give it a try."

Something wrong was happening here, Roxas knew that, and yet...he couldn't stop himself. (His cock was hard, so hard, and that had nothing to do with anything whatsoever). Maybe he'd understand her if he just nestled in with her on that bed, just faced her, just lay a hand on her oddly-hot shoulder.

"Yes," Xion cooed. Her eyes flew open, bright amber, strange, entrancing. "Please touch me, Roxas. Everything is cold. I need you."

Everything was a dream. The cuts his manacles left stung as he ran his hands down Xion's shoulders to her armpits, cautiously forward to her chest. He grabbed greedily at her tits at first before remembering himself, touching them softly, running his fingers around her areolas. She whimpered. He rubbed.

Behind possessed eyes, Xion stretched out and immersed herself in the pleasure of his ministrations. Just this was fire against her body, though his hands were that of a virgin's, different from Belle's long knowing fingertips. But Belle was altogether different, they were like one another--all dark inside and infected, basements bursting to door hinges with black fungus.

That fungus reached out to Roxas experimentally, brushing against the sides of his secret heart, pumping a spurt of lust inside. He found himself leaning into her, flicking his tongue against the tips of her nipples, devouring her moans like candy. Beside him her legs stiffened, one wrapping around him, her foot rubbing against his round ass, the muscles of the other tensing and relaxing in reply to his licks, to his sucking now. She turned face-up to the ceiling, gripped the sheets and moaned loudly.

She was a stranger to herself. This was a place far from reality where (the possessors whispered) she could play without consequence. And she needed to play, needed to escape from the monotonous drone of life in the Organization. His coat fell to the floor. Not enough. Gently she shoved him off of her chest, immediately missing the warm suck of his lips, and pulled off that black shirt of his.

"Against me," she gasped, pulled at his shoulders. They rubbed together, chests bare and aflame, paused and locked eyes.

Blue. Amber.

_Wrong_ , thought Roxas,  _something is wrong_. Something prickled up and down his arms, a sea of half-visible yellow eyed Heartless digging into his skin, flashing in and out of reality.

They saw him see them. The pain ran up his arm immediately; he broke off, pulled away from her ( _but why, why would I?_ ) stumbled across the bedroom. Xion looked up at him, only half there.

"Roxas," she said. Her fingers ran up and down her thighs, long, so close...so close to her pussy. "What's wrong?" She licked her lips, a wild grin flitting over her face.

"You're not you," Roxas gasped through the pain of the Heartless. Another wave of agony came, harder than before, almost sublime in its purity.

"You won't be you for long either," said Xion, or rather something said through her. The things latching onto Roxas's arm dug deeper and  _oh_ , he fell against the wall, fingernails peeling paint, cock gushing with need.

"It's hard, very hard," said Xion, crossing the room to the boy lying prone against the wall, paralyzed by pleasure, "to tell the difference between what you want and what  _they_ want." She lay on her stomach, running her hands up and down his bare chest. She teased his nipples for a moment, around the edges, flicking the tips, before growing bored and focusing on that bulge in his pants.

"That's not a good thing," said Roxas, not sure if he believed his own words. The way she slowly peeled off his black pants, the way the Possessors--just on the edge of visibility--dug into his body and set his skin on fire. It wasn't a good thing. There were certainly people out there who would say it wasn't a good thing.

The way she uncovered his cock and got to work on it immediately was wrong. The way she stroked it before almost immediately taking it into her mouth, down to the hilt immediately, her eyes rolling back into her head with pleasure.

_None of this is real_ , though Roxas suddenly. It couldn't be. Too much pleasure, too much. But the bob of her short black hair over his cock, wasn't it what he had wanted? Wasn't this what they'd talked about in shadowy corners of Twilight Town, in one another's arms, close and painfully clothed, ashamed, horny....

Roxas smashed his fists against the bed, thrusting up without even thinking about it. The rain picked up outside of the Castle, and Roxas gasped as his cock rubbed up against the back of Xion's mouth.

His cock popped out of her mouth. "You said this wasn't a good thing? I'm insulted." She flicked his cock with her finger, grinned at the expression that crossed his face. "Or...is it not good enough?"

"Xion," Roxas moaned. "This is..." He studied the exits of the room. The balcony went out into the storm, and to get to the exit he would have to move past...past...

Shit.

That underwear definitely wasn't up to Organization regulations.

Xion giggled at the look on his face, leaned forward and rubbed her fingers across his tender neck. "Do you like what you see? I know you've been wanting to see it for so long, just as I've been wanting to see  _you_. Well. Here I am." She ran her hands up her thighs to the black bikini that failed to even hide the edge of her pussy lips. "Now, Roxas. Can you hear me?"

"I can't. I can't." The Possessors ran up and down his arms now, yellow eyes shining in the dimness of the dilapidated room. "I can't."

"Can. You. Hear. Me."

"I c-" his cock burned, all the world fell away save her body, Xion's body. "can hear you."

"Excellent. Now, do you wish to keep Xion company?" She smiled horribly, all the more horrible because of how turned on he felt. As for Xion, she barely noticed a difference in her own smile. The world was soft and fuzzy, and this handsome boy she had loved for so long was here and horny and hers. "Make your choice," said the Xion-thing. "Give into us--me, that is--and you will always be with me. The worlds will dissolve into darkness, pieces of their hearts scattering to the cold winds. We will ride on those winds and swallow them, and they will be sweeter than you can imagine. Then we will summon our mortal bodies just to fuck like we did long ago, just for the novelty of it, before casting them off and entering into still deeper pleasures unknown to you or the girl, Xion."

"I." He. We. "This is so..."

"So," said Xion. "You can be whole, you know."

"...so good." Tears ran down his cheeks. "Please take me, take us both."

And she was there all at once without moving an inch, her hot body atop his, both entirely nude now. The pain slipped away, replaced by something warm and prickly that wrapped around Roxas's soul and assured him that he had made the right choice, of course he had, and moreover there would be so many great pleasures here in this darkness, just feel the moistness of her pussy and the stiffness of his own cock, feel the sensation as the two of you rub against one another, growing ever closer to that point of beautiful connection, the point that will steal the both of you from the grip of the Organization and carry you into everlasting darkness, love under darkness.

Roxas blinked and the saw the world as Xion did, saw her dragging her wet pussy over his cock, and smirked devilishly. "Yeah? You want this?" He gripped her wrists and pulled her so their faces were an inch apart, the musky animal smell of darkness heavy on their breath. They kissed...and that's when Roxas pulled her tight and flipped her over, splayed her out onto the bed.

"You want to fuck, huh?" He rubbed his cock thoughtfully, holding it away from her needful pussy. "Beg me."

"I did," she whispered. She fingered herself now, the lewd sounds turning his blood to fire. "What more do you want?"

"I want you to beg," he repeated. "It's that simple."

Xion moaned miserably, thrusting harder into her pussy with one hand, teasing her clit with the other. The heat was nice, the hands were nice, but...but was he going to keep this up forever? "I'll die," she said. "I'll die if you don't fuck me right now. Please."

"Good enough," said Roxas. He grabbed her by the legs and spread them wide; she let out a delighted squeak. He glanced down at her pink wetness--she'd left one hand by the side, but no way in Hell was she going to stop playing with her clit. "Very nice."

"We both know," said Xion, and stopped to moan, "that you don't, ahh, have any, mmm, point of comparison."

"You're one to talk."

Xion purred. "I thought you wanted to stick your cock in me, not interrogate--ah!"

Roxas grabbed her by the shoulders, steadied his cock and pulled her onto it. Xion let out a low, long animal groan, felt his warm rod deep inside, so unlike anything else, bare and rubbing up against her top wall. "Ohhhhh. I--can you--" but she gave up, turned into jelly as he slowly pushed in, slowly pulled back, deliciously teasing her.

"I obey," said Roxas, and glided his hands past her still-so-sensitive nipples. She gasped. Very nice.

Inside, Roxas was going quietly insane. Sure, he had just sold his entire being to the forces of darkness, but he was also driving to the hilt into the girl he'd dreamed of fucking for months. The slickness of her pussy wrapped around him as he fucked, again, again, squelching sounds in the dim rooms of the castle.

Faster now. Couldn't hide it, not anymore. She spread legs wide and high in the form of a butterfly and her moans grew into cries of pleasure--she moved to the bed as if to give him a better angle. No need. He replied by climbing atop her and holding himself up by his rippling, muscular arms, pumping inside of her like a machine piston, their love juices gushing onto the sheets

She wrapped her legs around him (he had never seen how long they were in that black cloak) and he went still harder, hitting almost uncomfortably deep for her but oh no, not quite, not enough for the hurt not to be  _exquisite_. It was more than that Keyblade that gave him strength; his thin limbs were sleek and muscular and they belonged to  _her_. She moaned, gripped the sheets till they ripped, curled so her pussy was up in the air to meet his cock.

The Possessors guided them to ideal pleasure, to every perfect weakness on one another's bodies. Every thrust sent a shudder of hunger through her body, rubbing against her G-spot, his pelvis flicking her clit deliciously. She squeezed her pussy intermittently, just when he was getting used to the feel of her, just then she had to pull a moan in with the movements of her body.

The all-swallowing warmth of orgasm pooled in their sexes slowly, built, turned to a boil and still they could not stop. The orgasm ran wild through his lithe and damned body, tossed him like a doll, hunched him over as he shot his hot white come into her pussy. It ran through Xion too, their bodies synchronized to the beat of darkness, swallowing the warmth, rejoicing in the heat and hardness of his cock as his come spread through her, messy, beautiful.

And it  _still did not stop_. The darkness reanimated them before they could grow tired. In their hearts (hearts? but we don't) they felt it gnaw, demanding more pleasure, more and more, and all the world was amber tinted and beautiful and nothing hurt, everything was coming around them, the whole world shook with orgasm, and only when they fell asleep--their bodies locked like stupid animals--was it anywhere near enough....

 

* * *

 

 

The lady of the castle walked down the hallways of her home and the walls seemed to shrink from her. Her hands were quick with the metal cane in her hand, ready to slap any furniture that dared to backtalk her. She was here to visit her first project ( _oh but Belle, you're our first project of the modern era)_  in her bedroom.

After playing with her new toy (and so many delightful buttons that were so fun to press), Belle had left her lying in her bedroom. The boy in the basement could've been taken while unconscious, but there was something slimy within Belle's heart, something vindictive that she had not accounted for, had not even been aware of. The something wanted the boy to give himself up of his own volition, just as the girl Xion had.

Loose chains. A damsel in distress. A little morality play with a very happy ending.

Belle found them lying in her bed, drenched in sweat, panting like the beasts they were. She raised her cane to give his ass (very pert, she thought, very muscular) a slap and thought better of it. They needed time to sleep.

And indeed there would be time....

 

 

 


	2. Honeymoon with Anxiety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the nightmare, Belle and Beast live in lovely sin. Don't they, dear reader? Pay attention--this will be on the test. Aren't you paying attention, Kairi?

A man's luxuries shows one's heart. For the Beast, books were an obsession. Long after they had settled into a healthier relationship and long before two outsiders were absorbed by the absolute pleasure of darkness, Belle found herself cataloging Beast's collection.

"Why on earth would you subject yourself to such a--a triviality?" the Beast snarled. It wasn't an aggressive thing; he just liked to snarl. After a while it was rather cute. "This project will take weeks. Months, maybe! What could you gain from it?"

"An organized library is an organized mind," said Belle simply. The two were reading together in their library, as they often did, and Belle had taken a break from her reading to deal with the stacks of books she'd began to pull from the shelves for her little project. "Wouldn't you like to be able to find anything you want whenever you want it?"

"No," said Beast simply. "If I want it, it'll be closer to the door. If it bores me, it'll be on a higher shelf. Now that is elegant organization, Belle."

Belle shook her head, smiling. "Of course you'd say that. Like it or not, I'm going through with this, and that's all there is to it. You'll thank me when I'm done."

And so she poured over volumes, dusting off novels and strange tomes, some in unknown languages, some impossibly old, some crumbling to the point where she wondered if they were books at all. But the project did not consume her. Belle was a young lady of infinite sensibility, possessing the healthiest of dispositions.

The Beast could attest to her health. Night after night, no matter how they spent their days, they lay in bed making a musky, animal sort of love. All manner of positions, for hours and hours.

Belle was a very creative person. And better yet, the changes to his body had one upside: there would be no pregnancy. Just a long, lovely fuck with an inhumanly large cock that seemed to never grow tired. Fortunately, Belle possessed an inhuman stamina all her own.

And everything was, miraculously, fine. No mysterious intruders in black. No interdimensional monsters. Just the beast and his princess. Just two lovers, both odd, in an enchanted castle that regularly had to place orders for new bedsheets.

Then Belle found the book, and everything changed.

"De Vermis Mysteriis." She tasted the words. German? Certainly Eastern, but not altogether unpleasant. Belle dusted the book, broke into a series of coughs--it was a higher balcony of the library here, and this book was particularly abandoned for its floor--and opened it. Her eyes stung as she tried to focus on the words, but the German words seemed to crawl away from her gaze in the dust. But no--no, there they were, and they were, oddly, in her own native French.

"There was once a woman in a lonely castle," she read, "uninitiated to the mysteries of the worm. Her body was white and untouched as fallen snow, knowing neither the touch of mortals nor the touch of the worms that wriggled in the heaps of dirt that are the Worlds. But the worms could sense in her a kindred spirit; they knew that beneath that pure body was the black soul of a succubus...."

Too many books weren't good for a woman, the Beast had long ago decided. This was an incredibly stupid opinion, of course, and to a point the Beast knew that. Growing up awash in such moronic platitudes, however, made it difficult to completely avoid their influence. And so Beast found himself increasingly frustrated by the amount of time that Belle spent on her little organizational project. Nothing seemed to progress in that library, though he didn't bother to look at the stacks of books in any great detail.

And at the end of the day, as Belle met him in his bedroom for their nightly fuck, she began to seem distant and tired both during the deed and afterward. Threads of conversation disappeared as her eyes caught some odd corner of the castle for no reason at all. She would bite her lip nervously. "I'm sorry. You were saying?"

Irritation, first, but he had been learning for some time to deal with that first instinct. When the irritation went, he found himself...

Deep breath.

He found himself afraid.

"Belle," he said one night, after she had held still as they fucked, still as a statue in the dark gardens behind the castle, stone and unfeeling. "I do love you. I don't know if I say this enough. I am..." He choked on the honesty. "I'm not good at this sort of thing. You know that I love you, don't you?"

Belle faced the opposite wall. "I know that," she said softly.

"Good," said the Beast, feeling either foolish or confused. He wasn't good at sorting his emotions out.

Belle turned then, and in the dim light her eyes were either wide or wet with tears. "I love you too," she said. "It breaks my heart to pieces sometimes."

"Um." The Beast blinked. "Thank you."

They held one another until dawn.

As last nights go, it could have been worse.

...but through the waves of pleasure still the worms surged, fueled by the hunger of the pale vacant virgin on the threshold...

De Vermis Mysteriis took an honored place in Belle's bookshelves, shuffled though it was by her whims. Those whims mutated over time. Hunched over the book, late to her bed with the Beast, she plunged herself onto her fingers, her pussy dripping onto the varnished library floor as she poured hungrily over the next verse of the book. On the last night she found herself racing through the halls of the castle, heels clacking against the floor, coated in sweat from the lovemaking and her own terror.

I am lost, she thought, and giggled. And then a joke: Help me. Help us all.

The castle was old and had been owned by generations of miserable, paranoid kings. These kings stuffed the halls of the castle with secret passages and chambers either to halt conspirators or--more likely--because secret passages are awesome. Several snaked their way through the stone into the library, and one of those chambers held that damned blessed book, filled with lewd instruments and strange, unnervingly raw illustrations of sexual conquest that lined the walls, even covering the ceiling. No escape. The door itself was a couple embracing, a girl's legs flung to the side in ecstasy as the boy thrust with animal need--an image of pleasure's apex.

We are lost we are lost we are lost, thought Belle, thumbing through the book greedily. I wonder if God is watching me, she thought madly--not that she had thought of God much since her last day at church in the village, but the idea of something watching her as she frigged herself in the darkness of her strange chamber horrified her, filled her mind with anxiety and fear and lust, and she wondered exactly how much she had damned herself as she came onto her fingers.

She was not satisfied.

The plastered walls loomed in around her, watching. Blobs of darkness dripped from the faces of the lovers. Her fingers ached; the darkness slid across the floor, combined with awful squishing noises, slid towards her lazing body.

The darkness from Outside shivered, sniffing her pussy from the pool at her feet. Yellow eyes sprouted out in the pool, dancing, staring up at her. The darkness shuddered. Slowly, like time-lapsed growing plants, tendrils of darkness rose from the pool towards her cunt. They quivered by the mouth of her cunt, and even that movement sent Belle into a reverie, clutching the baseboard of her chair.

When the tendrils paused, utterly still in the moist air of the pervert's den, Belle groaned in anticipation.

They flew at her.

Three of them ripped her pussy open, one hitting her depths immediately. Her nails dug into her chair, adding to the hundred or more marks in the wood, and her cry tore through the walls of the castle. The first tendril drove into her needful cunt. Two others slid past, one back and forth, the other up and down--everything covered, and even the miserable joyful gasps of Belle were not enough for the dark puddle. A fourth tendril slowly rose from the puddle...

"Please, please, please," she whispered. More, she thought. Fragments of the book's text rose to her mind unbidden, nonsensical, dreadful. --the former virgin writhed in mindless ecstasy in the bed of worms that was a God. All this in the castle of Cassilda, under a yellow moon that illuminated her pert well-plowed ass that the Worm King still hungered for, days and days later--

\--and shoved into her ass from the open back of her chair. She cried out, fell over--the chair collapsed into pieces at last, and she fell upon her thighs and hands, snarling and panting like a beast.

A low, silky voice rose from the golden ocean of pleasure in her mind. The very sensation of the three vicious tendrils in her pussy as she shoved herself back to meet them unfolded into skewed rainbows of color. Those colors became words:

This form you possess is capable of such beautiful atrocities.

"Mmhmm," she gasped.

The tendril in her ass split into two inside of her, doubling in thickness--she froze for a moment, adjusted, moaned. The slap of their push deep, deep inside of her (fucking me like a dominant animal, like a beast, and there was another thought hidden inside of that but it was gone too quickly to see) that sound, that slap wet with the strange juices, blended into the multicolor voice:

Everything depends on you, Belle. We rise from around you, old and awakened from slumber. Your body, your sweet body

"Harder, please please please harder--"

is all that we need, all that we wish. Your heart cried out to us. We have answered. We are already inside of you

"Yes," her arms gave, her rump in the air, grinning with her face against the floor. "Oh yes, yes--"

and there is but one part of you that we do not have access to.

"No," she moaned, the word trailing long, and why? Surely, something whispered inside of her, it was the injustice of them not having that last part. Surely they needed it. Surely absolute pleasure.

Absolute pleasure. Penetrated to the core. One last keyhole to open. Your word is required.

"I can't," she said, believe how lucky I am, yes, I am so so very lucky aren't I to get such an opportunity, and I must take this opportunity. "Don't--ahh--don't" don't wait act now open yourself myself of course I meant myself open myself up lovely atrocities await a limitless harvest of bodies forever and ever amen worlds and worlds and worlds writhing in perfect synchronicity

"Take me," she said finally. The tendrils loosened for a moment...and then they went taut, surging into her, pulling all the puddles of darkness on the floor and in the walls as they went. Belle felt them surrounding her mind, worried for a moment that they would drown her but no, oh no, they were so warm.

A black coat against the world around her heart.

She took a deep breath. Every nerve surged with orgasm. She could feel her pussy dripping still, would feel it she knew (somehow) for an hour or so as her body adjusted to its new state.

"Belle?"

The sound of shifting stone.

A passageway uncovered.

Belle smiled. It did not reach her yellow eyes.

Look at those yellow eyes with me. Are you looking?

This is extremely important. Your life may depend on this. This is the heart of what I have shown you.

Kairi, are you paying attention?

"Kairi, are you paying attention?"

And of course she was, obviously, because an the honors student at her school, Kairi could definitely not afford to just fall asleep in the middle of class like an idiot. Which she did not. They were talking about...

She lifted her head blearily, did a take around the room. The class pretended not to look at her. The teacher very pointedly pretended no such thing.

The Lit professor, Mr. Scientia. Inexplicably not a science teacher, though apparently an alright cook. Right.

"'Course I am," she mumbled.

"So you agree with my theory on Renfield, then?"

Kairi patted the copy of Dracula at her desk. "Mostly?"

"Fantastic. I wasn't talking about Renfield," He shook his head. Kairi thanked Kingdom Hearts herself that she had good enough grades to avoid too much trouble.

Mr. Scientia paced the classroom, letting that dig serve as enough punishment for now. "I was making a point about this lovely old trash you're all reading. Eros and Thanatos, children, Eros and Thanatos. Most books pick up these two themes--love and death--in more subtle ways. Dracula, poor as it may be in some aspects as a novel, has the decency to make that subtext more explicit. Sexuality and death are the two edges of the sword that is life."

The girls and over half of the boys blushed, trying not to examine Mr. Scientia's face and/or shapely butt.

"It is the same sword, however. The character of Dracula makes this clear. He embodies both sexuality and horror. He shows us, in his own way, that these emotions are not that different. They both involve a lack of control, a flipping of the natural order...and yet they are both utterly natural." He picked up a copy from his desk and whacked it with his hand dramatically. Kairi rolled her eyes. "Just a book! But a book can change you. It can change you to the very core, if you let it!"

"The core. Into the gates of your heart," Kairi muttered. Pieces of the dream returned to her, and she blushed. Oh god. More awake now, she became aware of herself. She'd felt it before, but she hadn't thought about it, really. Now, though.... I'm so goddamn wet. This is ridiculous. Oh god, I'm going to die.

"Into the gates of your heart," Ignis Scientia repeated, and Kairi blushed harder at the thought of the beautiful woman, the terrible tendrils, the wild beast and those warm nights. It was awful enough that she barely slept these days, save for some odd half-dreams of a couple imaginary friends that used to play with her on the islands. On top of that oddity, she had to have horny dreams now. In class.

Kill me, she thought.

The door to the classroom swung open. Mr. Scientia turned.

She swayed slightly in the doorway, the girl who was supposed to be sick that day--Kairi's best friend, and, uh, her complication. She panted, her arm resting against the doorway, her reddish-brown hair oddly scraggly in her usual bob cut.

"Selphie Tilmitt," said Mr. Scientia. "You don't look well. Are you sure you should be here? We--"

"Oh no, Mr. Scientia," she said. She smiled, wide and toothful. "I feel very, very good." She batted her eyelashes at the class, turning her green-eyed gaze on Kairi. "Very good."

Except, of course, that her eyes were not green.


	3. A Ceremony of Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Months after the Party, Selphie finally talks to Kairi. Her eyes are odd, but she's sweet. Everything is sweet. Oh, everything smells so horribly sweet. Meanwhile, in non-sex-scene-land, Riku and Namine bond over their trauma. They have plenty of it, so it'll surely work out fine.
> 
> Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! I'm pretty sure nobody is reading this fanfic at this point, which is fine. Frankly, this is one of many places I've posted this. The only reason I'm still posting it on this site is because I'm actually trying to not just write porn, but write A Story That Is Also Porn. If a single person eventually reads this, enjoys this, and feels enriched--or even if they DON'T feel enriched--then that's enough for me.

 

In a sparse room in the Castle that Never Was, Axel tossed the porno rag into the wall and snarled. What a cheap, obvious way of telling a story. He grumbled, shifted uncomfortably in his bed. His raging hard-on poked against the covers embarrassingly. Somehow it was worse than being naked.

The writer had done that  _stupid bullshit_  where somebody wakes up in the middle of a dream and it turns out--shocker!--that the dream was actually super relevant. 

Hacky as hell.

Axel was a veritable porno fiend, with more than half of his bookshelf devoted to all kinds of trash both illustrated and written, but by god he had standards and he stood by them. What kind of asshole would write a story like that?

Also, there was not nearly enough fucking. Axel stroked his cock beneath the covers, debating whether to bother picking up the book or just finishing himself off then and there. He liked to think he had a pretty good imagination, after all. Larxene? Well, yes, she was dead. But she'd been a marvelous fuck, so he was fine with a little imaginary necromancy. A few of the Organization boys ran by, but he was only feeling a  _little_  bisexual then and there, and really only for Roxas.

God damn it, Axel hated how bisexual he was for Roxas's cute little butt. And at the thought of that particular cute butt, he remembered just how fine Xion's was too.

Briefly, Axel wondered if he was a bad person for imagining them locked arm and arm, thrusting on a bed, and imagining himself swaggering towards them with his cock ready...

"Axel, I--ah. You're busy." Saix cleared his throat.

"I, err. I'm not busy." Axel coughed. Tried to regain his devil-may-care composure. "I'm ready. For missions, I mean." He couldn't resist patting the empty space on his bed and giving Saix a nasty grin. "Or whatever you're interested in,  _Isa_."

"Simply marvelous," said Saix, because he had become quite boring over the past few years. "Your charges are missing."

_Just absolutely railing one another_ , Axel's cock whispered (figuratively).  _In some tunnel in Twilight Town. You know it. Those stupid teens--younger teens, I mean, not an old fogey like you. Technically, you know, you_ could  _head on over and..._ He tried to ignore it.

"They're probably, uh. Absolutely railing one another in some tunnel in Twilight Town," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"Or something," Axel stammered.

"Should I, er," Saix glanced at the porno book lying on the floor and back at Axel. Cleared his throat. "Should I come back in a few minutes? Because you  _do_ need to find them, and we've been getting some strange readings from Destiny Islands."

But it was too late.

To Saix''s horror, Axel was already jacking it.

 

* * *

 

[Three weeks ago, it had been the Party. Capitalized, and with good reason. It was Tidus's birthday, and Selphie had dragged Kairi there kicking and screaming to get her out of the foul mood she'd been in for the past several months. As the night grew hazier and wilder, Kairi definitely found herself in a different sort of mood.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13242048)

[As the rest of the party slept off their booze, Kairi found herself fucking the girl she'd been nursing a crush on for the past year or more. It was gorgeous; the orgasm was a hurricane. They were too tired to keep it going, though, and Kairi promised to pay Selphie back with interest the next time they got together.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13242048)

They hadn't talked for months.

The foul mood fell again, harder and darker than before, filled with dreams of those two boys that didn't--couldn't--exist. Days not spent at school were spent at home, boring herself on the internet.

_Please look at me_ , Kairi would think when Selphie walked into the room.  _Please say something. Please._

_Did I do something wrong?_

That morning at school, when Selphie looked at Kairi with those strange yellow eyes...that seemed like the Party distilled into an expression. Stronger, maybe. Certainly without the mingled confusion and affection, without the complication of the past in the way of the lovely dominance of Selphie's fingers, of Selphie's tongue. Just pure, agonizing lust that almost stung to see. Her face was oddly pale, with sleepless circles beneath her eyes. Despite the sickliness, her brownish-red hair fell back in lush spirals, brighter and healthier than Kairi had ever seen it.

The first word she said was: "Kairi." A musical pur. Then: "Mr. Scientia. I'm sorry for being late."

"You, ah, called in sick."

A sweet scent--it must have been a new perfume she'd tried--washed over the room as she stepped inside and gently shut the door. Sweet and heavy, almost chemical. Apricot shampoo. Kairi became aware again of the wetness between her legs from the strange dream. Selphie's lip twitched up into a half-smile.

Through the invisible sweetness Selphie walked, no, she strutted. Mr. Scientia, usually the image of composure, pulled at his collar nervously, his gaze falling to the short skirt of Selphie's school uniform.  _But he would never do that,_ thought Selphie.  _He never has_.

But he was. Kairi watched Selphie take the empty seat next to Kairi for the first time in months, and looked to the rest of the classroom to see if they were as weirded out as she was. The room felt so warm now, too; Kairi felt wrapped in a warm blanket. In front of Kairi, the new boy Tiz was beginning to pant oddly, as if out of breath. His hair was damp with sweat. Kairi could smell the sweat from behind, and that smell was enhanced--not increased but  _enhanced_. He turned his head to her and she could see how sweet that boyish jaw was in the right light, how soft those lips--almost girlish, though his eyes were hard and manly.

Selphie snatched Kairi's hands in hers suddenly. "No," she said to Kairi. She turned to Tiz, who gazed at the air between them with blank eyes, a bit of drool forming on the edge of his lips. "She's not yours," said Selphie.

Someone in the back made a strange humming sound, long and low, giving way at the end to a moan. Kairi was damp all over. The sweat running out of her pores, the juices of her pussy, and her mouth too watered with the taste of strange, stale perfume.

"I want you to listen to me," Selphie cooed. Kairi looked from their joined hands ( _so long so long I missed you oh god_ ) to Selphie's odd yellow eyes. They were so bright. Kairi wanted to die in them. "Are you listening?"

"Always. All the time. Everything you say," Kairi stammered. "I, I, I just wanted you to talk to me again. And now you are."

Selphie blinked, and those lovely yellow eyes disappeared for a moment. The smirk, too, faded a bit. "Kairi," she said softly, her eyes closed.

"It's going to be okay now," said Kairi.

Selphie opened her eyes. Gold and sweet perfume.  _Let me sink into it._

"Kairi, I want you to see what we could be," whispered Selphie huskily. "Look. All around us the ceremony of innocence is drowned."

Mr. Scientia leaned against the chalkboard, shaking, trying not to look at his students...with a noticeable bulge in his pants. Tiz was walking down the aisle to take the outstretched hand of the religious girl Agnes Oblige, kiss it, and then fall upon her as she sat in her seat, biting the sensitive spot on her neck, her long legs stretching out to kick the desk beside her, a squeal of pleasure rising from her throat. Hunched over her, he tore that carefully fastened blouse from her chest and exposed her breasts. They bounced once before Agnes unbuckled them and shoved his face into her huge tits. Her legs wrapped around his back...

"I knew she was big up there," said Kairi dreamily. "But I never knew...and do you think we'll see some of him?"

"I knew you'd like this," said Selphie, squeezing her hand. "We will. That's more  _your_  thing, of course. I'll let you enjoy anyone you want."

"Will you?" Tiz ground against Agnes, and yes, yes it was a fine tool, thin but long...

"Naturally. But Kairi, don't restrict yourselves to them. All  _around_ , I said, so look  _around_!"

Wakka and Tidus sat side by side, their desks pushed to the side, hands resting conspicuously in one another's laps. In front of them Lulu, chest bare and stupidly gigantic, ground her pussy against the bare metal leg of the desk. Wakka and Tidus exchanged a wordless glance, turned their heads to one another--

"I believe you're supposed to be paying attention to me," Lulu husked. "You can get on with that on your own time."

Somehow, the wonderfully vicious Third Year Kefka had broken into the room and gotten a hold of the lovely Wiccan Terra and had wrapped her in a long silk cloth, spinning her back and forth like a yo-yo. Terra stared blankly smiling, and as the cloth unfurled Kairi could see her bare body. And then Kefka rose to her feet, snapped his elastic waistband, pulled it off, and that was when Kairi realized that Kefka was not, in fact, a woman.

Which was fine by her. A godly number of inches like those, and--well--how could she care at all?

How could she care at all? Ignis Scientia shuddered against the wall, his fingers rubbing up and down his thigh, staring at a point on the floor, his face a mask of horror. He shrieked suddenly, looked up...and saw the second-year Noctis right before he ran a hand across his cheek. "I'm lost," he said. Noctis nodded, and then lunged--

How could she care at all? Agnes Oblige came for the fourth time in that hour or those two hours or, oh, where was the clock? A pool of love-juices was forming at the foot of her desk. "I never thought, never thought," she whispered in the sweet air, "that it could all be this good and I'm sorry, I always wanted to, you know I did Tiz, but Mom and God,  _ahh_ " in her ass now, the both of them like animals. Kairi watched, her hand wiggling experimentally in her own asshole, finding that she liked that feeling of being dominated. Her other hand squeezed Selphie's once more. Selphie giggled. Everything was okay, so...

How could she care at all? They were all there, all lost in the perfume or the golden gleam of Selphie's eyes. Van the nerd and Penolo his stepsister and Balthier who they all thought was gay, and in that last part they were right but there were still fun things for a gay man to do with a boy and his girl if the three were open minded enough.

Even Kimahri, Wakka's great dane, had broken into the room and found Batlhier's best friend and infamous heartbreaker, Fran. 

The results were certainly...unforgettable. Kairi was a little disappointed in herself by how hard she came while watching the two of them, but the disappointment was nothing. Nothing was anything. Everything was nothing, and nothing was the sweet sweet perfume that wreathed the oddly pale neck of her perfect heartthrob Selphie.

"Are you happy?" asked Selphie, and she gave Kairi's head a pat. A thrill ran down from her head to her spine to her pussy.

"Yes," she said, and the pleasure was too much for her, watching them all around her. Selphie shimmered before her--Kairi wiped her eyes to stop it. "I'm so happy," said Kairi. "You, um." Wiped her eyes again. "You came back for me."

"Of course I did."

"You don't hate me," said Kairi. "I was afraid that, um, I just..."

"No, I don't." Selphie scanned the room. It was near its peak. "Now we have to go. Don't you want to go?"

"Never." Bright, wide blue eyes gazing into clean, empty yellow.

"You'll go if you care about me. Don't you?"

"I, um," Kairi stammered, horrified.  _Please don't leave me please don't I can't do this again I_  "of course I do. We can go wherever you want. Please..."  _please don't leave me please I need you I need you more than anyone now they're both gone and you're all I have you're everything_ "...please lead the way."

"I'll always lead the way," said Selphie. The chorus of moans rose around them. The ground seemed to shudder, though Kairi did not see it, so engrossed was she with perfume and lust and the blood running hot from her heart.0 It was only you and Selphie, reader, that saw the Possessor Heartless slowly bubbling in the ground as the pair opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

And then they all saw them, too.

And it was too late.

 

* * *

 

It was supposed to be a dead town. All of DiZ's intel spoke to a wasteland abandoned after the Keyblade War, a great gravestone of rotting houses and shops marking the folly of those that rose their keys high to horde the light. The town they'd found (ominously, it had called itself Twilight Town) bustled and laughed and burst with joy more than most of the other worlds they'd scouted out for their headquarters.

For DiZ, used to authority as he was, a decision was a decision. And so Riku, Namine, and the man himself settled into the most Edgar Allen Poe of mansions to hide out from the Organization and plot...something or other.

"He's definitely making it up as he goes along," said Riku. He still felt self-conscious in his long, billowing black cloak. Certainly, it had spoken to his inner goth at first. No denying that. But after weeks and weeks in the miserable, sweaty black (magic?) leather, Riku found that it just drew attention or gave him body odor or both.

"I don't know about that," said Namine, vague as always. "The Organization has shown up here, you know."

Riku pretended not to be interested. "Obviously," he said.  _Sora. How dare they do that to you?_

"A few times," she continued. "This one time," Namine giggled, "they set up a bunch of big metal emblems around town to test one of their members. See how fast they could pick them up, I think. Stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Riku, with his black cloak and gigantic, deeply uncomfortable blindfold, chuckled--he couldn't stop himself. "What kind of stupid lunatic would come up with shit like that?"

"That's the Orgy," said Namine, shrugging.

They had stopped by the center of town, where the trolley ran back and forth in a predictable, oddly meaningless pattern like something from a video game. It was the sort of thing to make you question whether your life was a simulation. Then, if you're really a thinking sort, it was the sort of thing to make you question if all of that really mattered.

But in Twilight Town there was no night and there was no day. There was only one sunset with a few variations that grew staler the more that you watched them. Riku pulled Namine up to the top of a store in the center of town, wound 'round by a tram that ran automatically even when no passengers were awake to ride.

It was funny. Watching the sunset should have gotten old by then, right?

They'd talked about all manner of things. Castle Oblivion was a favorite of Namine's; there never seemed to be enough gossip on the Organization, that mass of truly heartless succubi that backstabbed one another so hard that it made Riku wonder how they were still in business.

Riku, he would talk about sunlight and the sand of his home, or join in those stories of the utterly flat white walls of Castle Oblivion.

But there were so many things they could not discuss.

When the time came to discuss the Lord of the Castle, Marluxia, Namine would fall silent. Her shuddering would guide Riku to another subject, nearly any subject at all, really. Even the sight of flowers would bring her to a strange and dark place. On a couple occasions, when the pair of them scouted out the dying gardens of Hollow Bastion, Namine would sit down and hug her legs, shivering without ceasing.

The first time, Riku tried to hold her and she replied by tearing his memories in half. Took a day to fix him up. The second time he asked before touching her.

Then they would sit together, watching the wilting forms shake in the winds of a dead world. Several times she would pull her sketchpad to draw the desolate places of Hollow Bastion, picking the most decayed and empty places that Riku could imagine. Her mind seemed hardwired towards emptiness.

Laser-focused.

Once Namine had burst into a fit of sobs. It had been a routine reconnaissance mission for DiZ in Wonderland, that strange world of roses and madness. Riku had watched her pencil begin to shake as she drew the flowers, had watched the arcs of the sketch grow wider and wider till it broke into a storm of horrible mad scribbles. She was rolling in the awful false plastic dirt then, shrieking curse words, and Riku desperately assembled kind words into sentences that maybe would work, please would work, please oh Christ--

\--and after hours, seven or more hours of Riku slowly guiding her past catatonia towards monosyllabic words, then conversation, and now I'll walk towards you is that okay? and can you touch my hand?--

"Hi. Good," said Namine. She felt his hand. "Riku."

She rose so slowly that night that Riku wondered if she would ever come back from that darkness, but she did. She was so strong that it scared him. After all, he'd barely spoken on his own nightmares--on the people he'd hurt, on the darkness he had embraced, on the  **consequences**  that ran from his fingers to his arms to his very bones.

And she.

So powerful.. So beautiful. What was she?

_Do I care?_

And the man, DiZ, snarled and stamped his foot. Riku snapped to awareness. It was a debriefing in that grim white facility beneath Twilight Town.

"We did not find your laboratory, nor did we find Sora's Nobody," said Riku. The way DiZ paced shoved under Riku's fingernails; it reminded him vaguely of the way Tidus's father Jecht paced when talking to people younger than himself: hungry for any dominance that he could seize.

"Of course you did not," said DiZ.

"There's no reason to be hard on Namine," Riku insisted. "She did all that she could. I--"

"I disagree," said DiZ. The fiend in dark red bandages turned, and Riku swore he heard him laugh, deep and nasty and cruel. "Still, she cannot help what she is. I suspect that her own tainted existence resonated with that of that dark world. It may have kept her from operating with maximum efficiency. Distracted her. Did she seem distracted?"

"She seemed hurt."

"She is hurt in perpetuity. The girl is a living wound, nothing more. I suppose I cannot blame her after all for a lack of results. You may--"

A shriek ripped through the quiet, steady machine hum of the facility. Riku and DiZ exchanged looks.

It was Namine.

They tore through the halls, turning at the sharp angles. The old man was fast, faster than Riku was. They ran up into the mansion, through the rubble and dust, dashing up the stairway. Riku threw open the door to Namine's room; it flew off its hinges into the wall, clattering to the floor.

Nearly hitting Namine herself.

She sat on her bed, facing the windows away from them. Over her shoulder Riku could see her drawing spirals upon spirals upon spirals, deep violet and perfectly circular....

"Namine," he said softly. "Hey, Namine. Are you okay?"

She turned her head. Her smile was wide and hungry. "I feel great," she said. Her irises flickered somehow, flashing between an eerie amber and her usual blue. "I feel great," she said again. "I feel great. I feel great. I feel. Gr. Gre." Blue, now. Just blue.

"Hey," Riku whispered.

"Riku," she said. Another flicker--but blue again, just blue. "Please help me. I feel. I feel....I feel sick."

The colored pencil slipped from her hands, rolling across the floor. She fell unconscious in his arms.

"The tool breaks at last," DiZ muttered. He stood at a safe distance in the doorway, amber eyes sharp, mouth twisted into a snarl. "This will not do. Riku--"

"DiZ?" Riku lay her comfortably, carefully onto the bed. "Let me stop you right there." He stood. "If you say one more word about Namine, I will take this sword--" it flashed into his hand in a cloud of darkness "--and I will shove it down your throat. I'll leave it there all night. Hopefully you won't last that long. If you do? I'll twist it and leave it in another day."

DiZ smiled. "Ah. There we are. Such indignant light in your heart. This is the Riku that I--"

"Seriously. Shut the fuck up or I will toss your geriatric ass out the window and take over this operation myself."

"Mm." DiZ wasn't smiling. He raised his hand--paused--then he chuckled mirthlessly, stepped out and shut the door.

"Hey, Namine," said Riku. He touched her neck--still breathing, heart still beating. "Namine, open your eyes." He watched her chest rise and fall, her shut eyelids flutter.

_I wonder._  "You are  _almost_ a princess."

He crouched over her and gently--so gently--placed a kiss on her lips.

Nothing happened.

"I fucking hate fairy tales."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What will happen??? Is Namine okay? Will Kairi have tons of inevitable sex with Dark!Selphie? Will I stop adding characters and odd, intricate plot details to my porn fanfic? Who knows?
> 
> Me, actually.
> 
> 1.) No.  
> 2.) Yes.  
> 3.) lmao of course I won't.


	4. The Liberation of the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle advances her great plan after having some fun with her second-favorite toy. Xion investigates and tests her physical limits. Selphie and Kairi lead a pep rally before hitting the showers and sharing in a strange secret.

A low, needful moan tore through the East Wing of the castle. It was almost loud enough to cast waves through tapestries, to ride vibrations through the stone flooring. Xion, in her messy basement room, casually frigged herself in the light of her computer screen. Screaming orgasms were nothing odd in Beast's Castle at this point. The constant pleasure of their new conditions meant that one or the other or all three of them were tumbling together at all manner of odd hours. It also made it difficult  _not_  to fall into the habit of lightly stroking it without even realizing it.

It would've made sleeping a real bitch if any of them needed to sleep anymore.

Roxas and Belle had been at it for hours this time, though. On one hand, it was nice to have the two of them distracted so she could get some research done on what, exactly, had been done to the two of them.

On the other hand, it was getting very hard to focus when it felt like she needed to be penetrated  _everywhere_  and  _now_. She sighed, locked her computer, and pulled a nine-inch steel vibe from her desk drawer.

"I'm going to need a Soldier Heartless here," she shouted from her basement room. From above, in the East Wing where Belle slept, an even loader cry. "Okay,  _shit_ ," she was thinking now of Roxas getting slammed by a tentacle wielding Belle, not that he was ever quite that kinky.

Yet. Xion was working on him.

Still, no putting that image back in the box. Xion sighed, hopelessly horny now. "No--ah--Soldier. Changed my mind. Gimme--mmm--a Wyvern, a Neoshadow, a Behemoth, and--oh yes--a metric fuckton of lube, okay? Ohhh fuck yes, make me your slut.  **Now.** "

* * *

 

Belle's room in the East Wing was unrecognizable. The walls, the ceiling, the floor--they had given way to a strange, soft, warm dark violet something that pulsed with electric blue light. The dark flesh spread out from the room and out into the East Wing hallway now, and it showed no sign of stopping.

But this isn't probably what you'd notice first in the room, reader. I suspect you would probably notice the naked Belle, her pussy and ass dripping come, her limbs suspended by violet tentacles extending from all sides, arms and legs splayed in a diagonal X-shape. From behind Roxas shoved into her sore red asshole, grunting like an animal, coming once again and pausing only to flick it from his cock onto the thirsty ground.

The walls and ceiling dripped lubricant. The sweet, sweaty smell would've driven an uninfected (an Unblessed, Belle called them) into a frenzy of lust. Even the Blessed had trouble breaking themselves away from the aroma.

"I need," Belle gasped, "something more in my pussy, something--not you, Roxas--and make it shoot something in me, please--"

A third tentacle joined the two already inside of her. She shrieked with pleasure--a tentacle fired inside and her arms jerked taut against the tentacles that held her arms so tightly, not wanting to truly break free. "My mouth," she whispered. "And Roxas. His too."

Roxas blinked, uncertain, but the Lady of the Castle always knew what was best. The tentacle tasted salty and sweet like ( **like nothing important** ) salty and sweat and the way it pulsed against his lips made him grip her thighs in his hands and dig his nails into them as he came, harder than ever, filling her anus with enough come to form a puddle beneath them, mingling with the strange chemicals of the heartless and the other strange dark things...

His mind floating away into that blissful sensation of being just a body...

...just a body...

...and then he was lying uncomfortably on the floor, nude, in a cold puddle. Belle was getting dressed in her slightly-modified dress--still blue and white, but with a few adjustments to make "access" a little easier. Just shorter enough. No underwear. It still looked odd to Roxas, as if she was almost still a normal person.

Maybe she just wanted to hold onto it.

"I think I may have milked you till you passed out," said Belle, giggling. "Are you alright? Yes, of course you are. What am I asking?

Roxas could still feel the orgasm passing over him. He found himself giggling too. "In the mouth. That was nice. I see why you liked it."

"I always know best. You know that, don't you?"

"I know that." Still hard. He looked up at Belle pleadingly. She shook her head and made an odd, "closer" gesture with her hand.

Roxas felt something warm and tight drain from him slightly. His cock softened slightly. "I don't feel..."

"As horny, yes. Sometimes moderation is called for. Now, would you kindly go down to the basement and fetch Xion? Perhaps you could satisfy yourselves with one another there, but  _please_  be brief. I have an important mission for you two."

Roxas nodded and set off through the corridors of the castle. In the basement he passed the dungeons, the new and  _proper_ dungeons built of pale blue crystal and violet flesh. There--as Belle had insisted upon often but had begun to forget about--Roxas tossed a few hunks of meat that Heartless were tasked to supply the castle with for the prisoners. A leak in the ceiling provided the other necessities. As for cleaning, well. Heartless job, if the things ever got around to it.

The were mostly villagers from the nearby town--old men, young rapscallions, toadies, booksellers. None of them Belle seemed interested in infecting for some reason, but all were regular folk.

Except for the last one. The one who must've owned the castle before. The brown, furred monster that the villagers were afraid to talk to.

"I'll tear you apart for what you did to Belle," he whispered. A variation of what he said every time. Roxas answered as he usually did.

"What she did to us." And the Beast would scream and snarl and ram himself against the bars as Roxas ignored him for more important business.

Down below the dungeons of the villagers and Beast, down below the Unforgivable Unprisoned that clawed at minds instead of bars, Roxas walked to Xion's room. Why she'd chosen a dungeon for a living quarters he'd wondered in his free time, but the answer was as unsatisfying as it was obvious given their mutual past.

The sickly sweet smell of Heartless jizz hit him like smelling salts. And at that moment the wooden door flew open--a Wyvern flew out first, wings flapping and absurd cock jiggling in the back; then a shifty Neoshadow slinking out in the most magical walk of shame recorded.

There was a rumbling, then. Roxas hugged the wall on warrior's instinct; stampeding out and splintering the wooden door, the beast known as the Heartless Behemoth.

"Xion," he whispered. "You okay? Please respond."

"Mm."

"Is that a yes?"

"Um."

"No?"

"Oww. Come in."

Xion sprawled out on the floor ass-up, lying in a pool of pinkish-purple sweet-rot smelling Heartless jizz. She glanced up at Roxas and gave an exhausted smile. "Hi."

"Do you, umm..." Roxas glanced around Xion's room, from the soiled bedsheets to the computers towering on every corner, to Xion's trying-too-hard Edvard Munch paintings on every wall "...do you need help?"

"Oh God, no more help for a while," said Xion, and she laughed and twitched, and a bit of purple dripped out of her cunt. "Thanks for the offer, though," She pulled herself off the floor and smiled, waveringly only a little bit.

"What's all this about?" He tapped a few buttons on Xion's computers experimentally. Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, porno, spreadsheets, porno, porno...

"Stop that. It's top secret." She broke into a fit of giggles, still in the afterglow of her Heartless orgasm.

"Can I see?"

"Maybe in time."

Roxas frowned. "Why bother with all this at all? We've got everything we need."

"Because I want to know things," said Xion, and the wild joy in Roxas's eyes made her wonder if she'd said too much. He seemed...enthralled, now.

Roxas paced back and forth, strange and doll-like in the light of Xion's monitors. "Why do you want to know things?"

She spoke without thinking. "Because we deserve better."

Roxas blinked. Xion pulled herself from the floor, ignoring the way her nerves screamed for more pleasure, for a horde of Heartless to envelop her and bring her to heaven.

 

Roxas watched her muscles move as she stood, breasts and slim chest...and watched her sigh deeply, collapsing again in a pile of horny misery.

 

"Went too hard," said Roxas.  _But there was something else we were talking about. What was that?_

 

"Mmhm."

 

"Belle has a mission for us."

 

"Great. I just love going on Missions."

 

Roxas grinned. "Me too. So many Unblessed, so little time."

 

"Right."

 

Xion dressed herself--the Castle was cold, after all--and the two of them made their way back. Past the sad and hollow-eyed Beast and the gaunt prisoners, through the gothic halls, into the soft flesh that marked the beginning of Belle's domain. The air was humid with the sweet reek of the Miasma.

 

The flesh of Belle's chamber had formed into an ostentatious throne, all curling horns of blue bone and ornate flourishes. Belle sat upon it, a royal red robe billowing around her, a book in her hand-- _that_  book, the one the two ex-Organization members had seen her page through countless times over the past several days. She glanced up.

 

"You two took quite a while," she said. "But time isn't  _that_  scarce right now. I'll allow it. Still." She smirked and turned her palm up. Her index and thumb met.

A jolt of pleasure, agonizing in its intensity, ran through the two teens' bodies, knocking them to the floor. They came immediately, violently. The spell passed and they dragged themselves to attention once again.

Belle smiled.

"With that out of the way," she said, "I think it is time that we discussed goals. Visions. You two have been gravely wronged, haven't you?" She paused. Nodded. "Yes--even before you told me about your Organization, I could see it in your eyes. It would be insulting to compare my suffering to the depths that you have suffered, Xion. Roxas. I  _have_  been an outcast, though, just as you have. I was shunned in my village. I tried my best to ignore it, to greet every day with a smile and a song, but in the end my hatred stole them from me."

She crossed her long legs, set her chin on her hand. "And that is the world in an image. Countless hordes of outcasts bowing their heads before countless crowds. That has been the world from its inception. What I propose is a world where everyone takes their turn to bow. I see a world shaken from its pretenses of knowledge. I see higher intellect hand-in-hand with baser instincts than animals. The master of the world will not be villagers or some black-cloaked Superior. It will not be a general or a King or a God! We will all bow down--you two, now-- _bow_!" She stood, a pale goddess of nightmares before her throne, pointing with a pale slender finger at the ground. "Bow and kiss the ground!"

They did.

"We will  _all_  bow down," she said, still standing, "before all-consuming pleasure." Her fingers clutched the cover of her book. "Equals, all of us. No gods, no masters. No light. It will be the Liberation of the Dark. Yes, mistress."

Muffled, asses up, mouths against the ground: "Yes, mistress."

"You two will be gods with me," she said softly, almost to herself. "Now stand. Xion, it is time that we made our move. I command you to bring the Possessors to the Organization. We may have waited too long as it is. Roxas, check on our first world--those islands. I want a thorough report. I want to know for certain what happens to the world itself once we have dominated it."

"Yes, Mistress." Roxas's amber eyes flashed, and a dark corridor opened before him. "May I go?"

"You may."

"Goodbye, Xion. I," and he paused. Belle smiled tightly. "Bye." And he was gone.

The Mistress and the Replica were silent in the chamber of flesh.

Eventually, Belle spoke. "Do you have any questions about your assignment, Xion?"

"No," she said. "I have other questions."

Belle blinked. "You have no need to ask other questions."

"Just related to your own words, Mistress. You mention a Liberation of the Dark. I would like to know what that entails. Is that the inf-" she coughed "-Uplifting of all living things?"

"You," said Belle, her voice dangerously low now, "have no need to ask those questions."

"I was the first one you turned," said Xion. She stood up and stared straight forward, right into the pale throat of Belle. "I feel that I deserve something." She bit her lip for a moment, as if thinking, and then: "You wouldn't have gotten this far without me, Mistress."

Belle stood, pale, mouth open and eyes wide like she'd been struck by lightning. Xion kept staring forward without moving, without speaking, without saying a single word.

"That," said Belle, "is a very good point." She sat back on her throne. "Xion, this is something I'm going to have to think about for a few days, if that's alright with you. But until then, I do a counterargument, if you would listen. Just a spur-of-the-moment one."

"Of course, Mistress."

"Wonderful." Belle's lips pulled tight, her teeth gleaming unnaturally sharp, and she snarled: " _I own you, Puppet."_

There was no air. There had never been air. Air was a distant dream. Xion fell to the ground, her eyes watering, gasping for nothing, there had always been nothing, nothing now and forever...

"I trusted you, Puppet," said Belle. She paced around the twitching form of the girl in the throne room, circling and circling like something hungry. The true horror hit like a crashing wave when Belle lifted her hand and snapped--and Xion felt her mind slip back slightly, felt the lust stir.

No air. No control. Nothing.

"In you and I, there was going to be a new land. Both outcasts. But somehow--and don't believe I won't find out how, imaginary girl--somehow I see that you haven't really planted your faith in me."

Xion clawed at the soft wet ground. Fruitlessly.

"Poor thing. Let this be a reminder, then, of who holds the leash. At any moment, your conscious mind bleeds away." Fingers closing. Xion's mouth opened, her tongue hanging out grotesquely across her teeth, her leg kicking from the deep throbbing sensation between her legs. Something in her head screamed to be let out. Her body refused. "You are mine. He is mine," said Belle. "Body and soul. We are all pawns of the Pallid Mask. Pawns of the Worm. Do you want to breath?"

_Yes please let me breath please I_  but Xion's body wouldn't listen to her mind. The body kicked and gaped like a beast, falling on its ass and beginning to frig itself even as black spots rose in Xion's vision.

"They were all right, you see?" whispered Belle oh-so-softly. "Puppet. Disgusting animal. Revolting. An abomination." She grinned, and oh those teeth were so sharp. 

"I could make you even more of one, if I didn't like that pretty young shape of yours. They tore you from the heart of a boy. How would you like to look like one? How would you like me to tear away this gorgeous girl you and Roxas have built and leave you trapped for all time?"

_Please oh god please oh god Roxas save me Axel save me just someone_

Belle snapped her fingers. Air. Precious air.

"I will come seventy times," said Belle, sounding bored. Her billowing red robe shredded before Xion's eyes, leaving Belle's fit body nude. Her pussy gushed with lust, despite the boredom in her voice. "Seventy times," Belle repeated. "And then, if the whim strikes me, I will let you go." She smiled. "Probably, I will not."

* * *

 

The crowd cheered, but their tongues were not human. They flicked silkily in their mouths, guttural--they were Heartless, all of them, and there were hundreds. It was the Gymnasium of Destiny High, and it was swarming with rough cloth-skinned Heartless. They crouched and cajoled on the bleachers, yellow glassy eyes bright under florescent lights.

Head pounding, mind scattered, Kairi had stumbled through the hallways of the school after Selphie, giggling all the way. Behind them Kairi heard, in the distance, her classroom screaming with one prolonged, unified orgasm. Then Selphie pulled Kairi through the double doors and into stairway before the exit to the outside of the school.

Kairi did not hear the point where the screams of pleasure turned into horror.

Beneath the pitch-black afternoon sky they scrambled into the auditorium, where the crowd of Heartless was gathering at the beckoning of their current leader, Selphie, the oldest of that world's Uplifted. Through double-doors they went, Kairi managing the stairs of the auditorium--

Applause.

Kairi blushed, mind still flushed with supernatural lust.  _For me. All for me._  Yes, all for her. Kairi exchanged a look with Selphie--go ahead, Selphie's smile said--and took a bow before them. Selphie's arm ran up Kairi's stomach as they rose, giving her right breast a sharp squeeze.

"Meep!" Kairi slapped Selphie's hand. Selphie just grinned, her eyelids fluttering innocently.

The room was just oh-so-sweet. It must have been the sensation of Selphie next to her, Kairi reasoned. After all this time, just seeing her again...but no, Kairi wasn't just some prude, she couldn't pretend that she wasn't turned on by the sight of seeing Selphie for the first time in so long, the curve of her hip so perfect, her nipples so hard and suckable beneath her so-thin blouse.

Applause.

The crowd cheered, but their tongues were not human. Kairi did not notice and could not have cared. The roars and growls of the crowd were gone as she pulled Selphie's hand, jerking her rudely to the ground of the gym, immersed in the sweetness. Selphie howled with laughter, pulled Kairi to the ground with her, and Kairi rolled like the gymnast she'd been when they were all a few grades younger--rolled on top of Selphie.

Kairi pushed herself up and looked for a long time into Selphie's amber eyes. Something gnawed at the back of her mind. She fought it.  _Everything is fine_ , she thought, as hard as she could. Kairi held herself above Selphie in the center of the basketball court, her arms aching, the crowd whistling otherworldly notes at the two of them. Beneath her Selphie panted, eyes glazed, mouth parted.

"Kiss me," Selphie demanded.

Kairi fell on her. Selphie's lips were even softer than she'd remembered, and her breath was so sweet and hot that the world died--all the world, everyone, all the trees and seas and sunsets boiled into that one scorching kiss, into the heat of their bodies meeting again, into the thud of Selphie's hands as Kairi pushed them back onto the floor of the court.

Applause.

Kairi loved the feeling of Selphie beneath her, so warm and writhing under her kisses. The nape of Selphie's neck was so soft and pure that she needed to give it a bite. Selphie squirmed and moaned. Kairi grinned toothily and started planting more of them, faster and harder down her neck. She tore Selphie's uniform open--buttons snapped loose and slid across the gymnasium floor--and massaged Selphie's tits roughly, her hands sliding beneath the bra onto Selphie's erect nipples.

"Kairi, Kairi, yes, Kairi--" so heated, and only at second base "--tear my bra off, lick my tits, I need you to, please...mmhm..."

Kairi obeyed. Selphie's breasts bounced free, bare, surrounded by her unbuttoned blouse. Kairi kissed them hungrily, back and forth, one after another, and was surprised at the taste of Selphie's nipples. Sweet, just like Selphie's breath, but moreso. Kairi sucked, her pussy burning with need, alternating between them between her mouth on one and her hand circling the nipple of the other. Yellow clouds were descending on the gym and the two of them, and the crowd--

Applause.

\--and the crowd was just as horny as she was, and it was so unfair that they could not be serviced, yes. Kairi let Selphie's tit go with a wet pop. "Wanna be fucked," she moaned, her leg kicking unconsciously like an animal. "Fucked. Everyone fuck me, let everyone do it, Selphie. You and me and everyone." Yellow fog.

Selphie smiled--and then the smile faded somewhat. "Maybe soon. But first, I want you. Just you." Selphie blinked, looking briefly confused. "Yes. I guess I suppose I do. What's wrong with me, you think?"

Kairi didn't answer. There was barely a Kairi  _to_ answer as Selphie led her away from the gymnasium, pieces of clothing still scattered on the floor. Behind them the Heartless watched, still and confused. Slowly, as Selphie led Kairi to the locker rooms beneath the gym--slowly, one by one, remaining seated all along--

Jeering.

 

* * *

 

"Here, in the showers, in the hot water," said Selphie. Already the steam was gathering in the girls' locker room beneath the school.

Kairi sat in the corner of the shower, half-undressed, fingering herself furiously. The yellow fog had dissipated somewhat. The lust had not. She came for the second time in half a minute, squirting lewdly onto the shower tiles, then looking up at Selphie with an expression somewhere between embarrassment and mischief. "When am I going to make, ahh, you come, hmm? It's been me. So many times, just me..."

"I'll come soon," said Selphie, smirking. "All over you. Are you feeling better?"

"Not by much. Everything's still weird."

"That's good. Long as you're you."

"Are you?" asked Kairi suddenly, not sure what that meant or why she said it.

Selphie was quiet for a moment, "Would it matter if I wasn't?" Kairi shook her head gently. "Come here, now, Kairi. I want to take you to heaven."

Kairi came again, twitching, skin hot and wet in the shower steam. And then came to Selphie. Kairi wrapped her arms around her waist and pulled her close, feeling their chests together, feeling the heat of Selphie's sex even from this far away. Supernatural heat, supernatural lust, and all was alright.

Just touching Selphie's skin turned the steam yellow and sweet, just slightly. She moaned musically.

"I'm going to give you a surprise," whispered Selphie.

"Mmhmm."

"You'll love it."

"I know."

Something brushed up against Kairi's thigh. Something else against the other. Kairi looked down, bleary and happy.

A gleaming, pinkish-violet forked tentacle trailed from Selphie's pussy and out. It rubbed both sides of Kairi's thighs, round and round, trailing tingling slime over her, slowly gravitating towards Kairi's pussy. Kairi wondered if she should scream. But Selphie kissed her on the forehead and dragged her lips down, over Kairi's cheek, to her ear.

Tingling sweat breath in her air, into her mind.

"Heaven," whispered Selphie, and the tentacles rose to the lips of Kairi's pussy....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ballooned way out of control, it was almost infuriating. I had to pick an arbitrary endpoint, and it still ended up being 5,000 words. The length of a SHORT STORY.
> 
> What's Xion up to? How many times will she make Belle come? Hey, wasn't Axel in this story at some point? Skyler, do you have any idea what you're doing whatsoever? Skyler, where am I? What happened to my physical form? Oh god. Oh god, did you transform me into author's note? What have you done?
> 
> What have you DONE, Skyler Slapdash?


	5. She's Lost Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kairi and Selphie continue their shadowy tryst into the showers beneath the gym. Xion contemplates acceptable losses. Roxas and Namine let loose a little. Axel goes to a popular vacation spot.

There in the darkness and the hot water, the ~~possessed~~ Uplifted girl Selphie reached her heart out to guide the Heartless within her body towards their next target. They were hunger itself inside of her, always squirming, making her oh-so-eternally-wet. They had taken her several days ago.

It was the boy and girl in black who did it. They had seemed so frightening to Selphie before she really got to know them and their gift. Odd how different things are in memory, isn't it? The boy and the girl had approached Selphie while she was cheating from her diet (which she allowed herself to do every Saturday) while walking home from the ice cream shop. In one hand, a cone with two different flavors of chocolate. In the other, her phone.

  


**KAIRI:** seriously tho can we please please please talk just call me

 **KAIRI** _ **:**_ did I do something wrong

 **KAIRI** : I'm sorry please dont leaf me hanging

 **KAIRI:** *leave

 **KAIRI** : please selphie ok

  


A sickly sound like rubber fluttering in the wind, and then they were there, and they were both smiling so widely that Selphie wondered if their heads were about to split in half. But no.

No, they came bearing gifts. And then they came, bearing gifts.

Three of Selphie's tentacles were stroking Kairi now in the dark hot shower beneath the gym, two opening into suckers on her breast, one teasing her entrance. Selphie fingered herself furiously, the Uplifted tentacles within stirring her G-spot deviously to make it never enough, never. Never enough for Kairi either, Selphie decided--another tentacle rose from Selphie's body, stroked Kairi's thigh as it passed, made its way to Kairi's ass.

"Ah! Selphie!" The thing dripped lubrication, teasing Kairi's asshole. "Selphie, yes. Please. I. I need it."

"We all do," said Selphie, smiling brightly. Her yellow eyes gleamed. "Everyone." The tentacle shoved into her tight asshole, squirming in rhythm with the one in her pussy, the other two flicking her tits. Selphie considered putting one in Kairi's mouth, but. Well. The moans were simply too damn nice to just stop up, you know?

More and more, Selphie could attune herself for the tentacles coming from her body. She wondered how soon it would be till she felt just like them, till she could smell the inside of Kairi's pussy as she stroked it, could fully taste the texture of her hard pink nipples under her ministrations, could herself fuck Kairi's asshole as her legs and arms gave way to just lie there and take it, panting, blushing, coming again and again.

And yet....

Selphie came inside of Kairi's ass and pussy, her tentacles spilling strange dark seeds inside, Selphie's own body collapsing in the hot water for only a moment before she kept it going, both slaves to their desires.

And yet....

Bodies and dirty showers and metallic lockers. Hot water and wet skin. Everything was sweetness and pleasure to Kairi, and the bursts of hotness inside of her pussy and her ass pushed her to the edge again and again, feeling animal, feeling dominated, and more than that feeling needed by Selphie again.

And yet....

"Isn't this good?" Selphie asked, a barely noticeable edge creeping into her voice.

"Mmhm."

"Yeah. Yeah, you like it."

"Mmmm."

"Then act like it."

The words were daggers.

"I, mmm, I don't." Kairi raised her head. "I don't understand."

"Why don't you want me? Want us?"

The sweetness dulled, just slightly. "I do. Selphie, I--"

"Do you?"

"I think I--ahh, ah, _ahh_ , _"_ Kairi came again, squirting over the mass of tentacles, over Selphie's thighs. "I think I. Ah. Love. You."

"Oh," said Selphie. "Good." _I love you too, I love you too, I love you too, I really do love you too_. The voice whispered again and again in the back of her head, louder and more panicked with every second. "If you really love us," she said instead, "then why don't you let us in?"

"What?" Deep inside of Kairi, the tentacles sprayed again. The air smelled...vaguely sweet? Hints of cherry.

"Why are you being so stubborn?" Selphie shoved Kairi onto the shower tiles. The locker room spun. "You said you loved me. Why won't you take it? Take it _right_?"

The tentacles slid out of her. Kairi blinked up at the showerhead and Selphie's nude form, all blurred with shower-water. She felt sore now, suddenly. Everything was very wrong now, suddenly.

Selphie's eyes were so yellow.

"How dare you?" Selphie spat. "You're supposed to join me, you know? I could finally tell you things, and so many things!"

"Selphie." Everything was so blurry and it wasn't just the shower-water or the pain in her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean...I, um. Did I do something wrong again?"

" _Did I do something wrong_?" Selphie repeated, sing-song. "Of course you did. You won't go over. You know why? Because you're a slut, but apparently you're not an _interesting_ slut. That's the only reason that I can think of for you to not be Uplifted by now. Look up here, now--I'm in heaven." She smiled. Lips so sharp. "No matter how much I shoot into you, you just won't join me here. I guess I was right. I guess you're a nobody."

"Please stop saying these things." The tears were so hot and the shower water so hot and Selphie stood over Kairi's nude form like she was trash, real trash. Hateful. Empty. "I love you," Kairi said, soft as water.

"I'll keep trying," said Selphie nonchalantly. Something was screaming and crying inside of her, kicking and biting. She didn't quite know what. Something to worry about later, she supposed. The tentacles writhed, hungry and horny, the little piece of girl-meat doe-eyed under her sharp gaze. Selphie leaned down, nude, over Kairi and--

\--the girl Kairi had fallen in love with leaned down, moving so mechanically that Kairi wanted to scream, that beautiful body seized by animatronic demons. She couldn't stop the tears and the sobbing now. There were things upstairs, weren't there? Something terrible had happened to her homeroom, hadn't it? It all seemed so obvious, and she hadn't known.

\--and Selphie's lips touched Kairi's--

\--and Kairi thought about them, thought about all of them, even the ones she didn't like, and wished that there was something she could do for all of them. Even Tidus, bless the nasal athletic dorkus. None of it was fair. None of them were bad people, not her class. She didn't like all of them, but here in the darkness, a corrupted puppet of her love looming above her, she...she loved them, maybe.

And the puppet, she loved her too. Selphie, that is. Selphie, who laughed easily and joked often, who looked so good on the gymnastics team. Selphie, who could smell misery like a shark smelled blood and was always ready to comfort anybody unhappy with some weird, off-color jokes that didn't always work. Selphie, whose parents listened to screaming radio channels about the queers and degenerates overrunning the islands, red-faced parents built like tin cans.

Sometimes Selphie would come in with a lot more makeup than usual, and she would laugh a lot, and she would say very little. Kairi would ask questions, and.

And she would just laugh.

And Kairi would want to do something or say something, but no one would care.

Selphie. Not the thing above her, but Selphie.

God, Kairi loved Selphie.

God, Kairi missed Selphie.

Kairi closed her eyes to take the kiss. Selphie snatched it from her lips, drank it in...and Selphie burned.

What happened was this:

Kairi broke free. She climbed the stairs and ran out of the gym, not bothering to take her clothes. She ran out into the streets and found them barren. Kairi found the sky clouded by darkness.

Selphie? Light seeped into the kiss, into her mouth so bitter and beautiful, and she could not stop it. It poured down her throat, into her lungs, into her entire body. She fell back, saw Kairi running up the stairs, opened her mouth to beg her to stay, and felt sickness take her. Selphie scrambled to the showers and heaved.

She vomited violet _something_ into the drain. Something monstrous slid from her body, slick, terrible to behold in the clarity of Selphie's mind now. Tentacles, strange organs, horrible fluids.

It wasn't the images that came to Selphie like a nightmare. It was the words. After the month of saying nothing, the...the words.

Selphie considered whether or not to dress herself, but...well. No. Through the fog of her memory, she remembered just how far the infection had spread now. She managed to barely stuff her clothing in a handbag and began to climb the stairs.

Nothing seemed real, but she would deal with that later. For now, there was the issue of that look Kairi had given her.

Shattered. After weeks and weeks of silence, finally shattered.

"I love you too," said Selphie as she stepped out of the gym, but no one heard her but you.

* * *

 

"Are you still thirsty?" Riku mumbled, rolling the empty glass cup between his fingertips nervously.

Namine shook her head. "I'm fine. I do appreciate it, though."

"You know," said Riku, "I don't think DiZ is going to believe you." They were in Namine's room, white wallpaper and sketches. Except the sketches had been torn from the walls now, the older ones sitting in a pile under her bed. The new sketches had a very...different tone now. Everything was exaggerated. The color of eyes was vital. Smiles were important. For men, bulge and ass were emphasized; for women, keep the ass and add tits and hips.

Think of it as a new artistic movement.

"What do you mean?" asked Namine, running a hand through her hair.

"DiZ is smart, but he's dumb as hell," said Riku. He stretched his arms, sitting on the floor in front of Namine. "You didn't just faint because of 'stress.' If you think you did, that'd be one thing. You sounded so sure that you had to be making it up."

Namine sat on the edge of her bed, looking down at Riku. It was nice living in a place that gave a shit about her living conditions, even if it was mostly just Riku who managed to actually care. Compared to Castle Oblivion, the mansion was a dream. But now here was that Riku digging up...problems.

"I don't know what's wrong, precisely, but I have some ideas," said Namine, surprising herself with how honest she was being with this boy, Riku. But, like it or not, she'd grown to care about him, so. Honesty it was, then. "It's the Organization, I think."

Riku grunted. Of course it was them. "What did they do to you?"

"Nothing on purpose. It's just..." She blushed. "I can see them in my dreams--Xion and Roxas. Something has happened to them."

"Those are the two pieces of Sora's heart, aren't they?"

Namine nodded. "Close enough. But Riku, something's gone wrong. Something that I don't think the Organization anticipated. They've changed, or been changed. I get glimpses of it. They're not Nobodies anymore."

"Are they human?" Excitement crept into Riku's voice. "Does that mean they can turn back into Sora more easily?"

Namine shook her head sadly. "No. Something terrible has happened. Their minds don't belong to themselves anymore. They didn't before, I suppose." She shuddered. "The Organization roosts in your mind. They always know the right way to make you feel like a slave."

"Namine?"

"I'm fine. It's different this time. That's what I'm saying. They're not Nobodies. They've become something else. And they...there's an energy in them now. Something animal or...no. Not animal. Animals are so complicated." She laughed nervously. "This isn't. It's all...lust, Riku. And aggression. Obedience. Not human, not animal, not even Nobody. Nobodies are emptiness. I should know."

"You're not like them."

"I know. That doesn't matter. Riku, I can _feel_ them here." Namine's hand fell onto her breast and squeezed. "Whatever got to Xion and Roxas, it can't get to me. Not physically. But the energy's still there, and I..." She sighed. "Riku. Could you come onto the bed, please?"

"What?"

"Please."

Riku did. The teens sat on the side of the bed looking at opposite sides of the wall.

"I don't know what I want," said Namine after a quiet moment.

"Yeah?"

"I've been sorting things," said Namine.

"..."

"..."

Namine turned to him suddenly and clutched his hands. "I've been sorting and I _can't stop_. Little, um, boxes in my head. I don't know where I being or where I end. First there was everything in Castle Oblivion. I had to be so many people. Myself. Kairi. Whatever the Organization wanted me to be. Then I met you and DiZ and found out that I was just pieces of Sora and Kairi, and even they didn't understand. Now there's Roxas and Xion in my head, and the thing that's infected them, and I don't know where any of it begins or ends. I don't know what I am, and I'm scared. I don't want to lose control."

"Neither do I," said Riku softly. "He's still in my heart. You know who. And the more I draw on darkness, the more I'm scared that he'll ride along with the darkness and take control."

"He won't," said Namine. They stared at one another's hands. "I've been reminding myself of something all day. You know what that something is?"

"No."

Namine looked up at him. "It's, um, not the energy from them. That is, it was already there, even if I've been thinking about it more today."

"I don't understand."

"I'm trying to say that I've been thinking about it for a while now."

"What are you--"

She was so much stronger than he'd thought. The way she pulled him into a kiss so roughly, greedily, her lips hot and soft against his own, both arms clutching his back hard enough through the black cloak that he would see little fingernail half-moons later that night. Then Namine broke away, expression horrified, wiping her mouth on her hand.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice almost breaking, her eyes wide. "See? The energy. It's in me."

Carefully, Riku put his hand on hers. "It's in me too."

"What if I lose control?"

"I'll watch over you if you watch over me."

"What if we both lose control?"

"Then we'll be damned together."

Namine bit her lip, stroking the back of his hand anxiously, thinking. Then she pulled him--no, they pulled one another--into another kiss on her bed, and the world fell away save their bodies....

* * *

 

Hell was familiar with the World That Never Was. She had walked its corridors, feeling small and lost, feeling so afraid of everyone in the halls save two people. One person, now that she thought of it. Yes, Xion had been afraid of Axel too, even if she loved him.

The clouds of the Dark City stirred oddly as the girl called Xion walked through the alleys. Heartless rose, claws ready, and then paused. She smelled familiar and unfamiliar. How unsettling.

The girl--or no, not a girl, not a Nobody, not anything the world had seen before--walked past Memory's Skyscraper with barely a glance. She still tasted Belle's pussy on her lips. She still ached from penetration, dripping Heartless come, still wet and horny. Always wet and horny The clouds of Belle's control swirled round and round with the clouds above, slowly fading. She blushed under her hood, hating Belle, hating herself. Hating in general.

It was time to take the Organization. What valuable pawns they would be in the Liberation of the Dark, or whatever pretentious name Belle had come up with. But as she walked into the entrance of the Castle, up the shimmering gate that extended for Organization members only, she began to wonder.

More and more she wondered.

 _"I expect there to be losses,”_ Belle had said. _“I expect that you will not be able to take everyone. I forgive you in advance."_

Puppet. Puppet. Puppet.

She threw open a door to the lounge. Just three Nobodies lounging, their missions finished or not yet begun. Xion didn't bother to take off her hood.

Xigbar sneered at her. "So the Poppet comes back at last. Done playing hooky with your boy toy?"

"I suspect this game may be at an end" muttered Luxord absently. He frowned at the Tarot spread on the small table in the lounge, glanced at the girl, and back at the spread. Ten of Swords, Tower reversed, The Lovers reversed, Judgment....

"What pathetic laziness," Xaldin snarled, approaching the girl-thing. "You've managed to make Demyx look like a hard worker. And what, pray tell, are you laughing at? What's funny about any of this? Do you have any idea the punishment you're in for when Saix hears about this? Or Xemnas himself? Stop laughing. I said _stop_. Is your thick little head hearing a word that I'm saying, or--"

_Splort._

It took a moment for the two remaining Organization members to fully process what had just happened in front of them.

The Keyblade was covered in gore, dripping...

...jutting out through the back of Xaldin's head, droplets of blood rolling down his pitch black hair...

...and Xion twisted her arm, Xaldin's mutilated corpse polluting clean white ground, blood running over Xion's dirty Organization boots.

"Acceptable losses," said Xion, eyeing the two of them hungrily. Xigbar took a step back, his Adam's apple rising and falling, mouth opening and closing. Luxord smiled sadly, running a gloved hand over the Ten of Swords, dragging a finger over the ten blades piercing the dead man. Violence without equal or redemption.

Xion began.

* * *

 

At first Namine stroked Riku's cock lightly, up and down the shaft, lubing her pale fingers with his precum, pausing when he turned to look at her as she licked it off, staring into his eyes. She laughed huskily, feeling like an actress slipping into a role--she was on the floor now, he on the bed--and loomed over his thick cock. Her breath was so hot and moist over it...

"Nami...." he gasped under her hot breath. She fell on him then, her lips smooth and moist around his shaft, her tongue flicking lightly around him. She bobbed up and down; Riku's hand fell on her head, her hair so soft and blonde and long, her mouth so warm and wet.

Namine sucked slowly, almost experimentally. It was odd to have control of these things. She savored it, savored the grunts of Riku on the bed, savored the way his fingers dug slightly into her mattress-- _her_ mattress, yes, here he was with his cock in her mouth on her own mattress. The thought made her feel like such a slut, and feeling like a slut made her...

...she could feel her panties between her legs turning into a wet rag. Horny misery. The feeling of Riku's hand on her head was so strangely comforting. His hands were so soft. And his cock, oh, the skin was so oily and slippery in her mouth, the taste so musky.

Riku tried not to shove his dick into her mouth; the feeling of her around him was too much and he found himself pushing. She gagged slightly, paused.

Then she took him deeper. Her saliva dripped over his hard cock, sucking so right, too right. Riku could hear himself panting and moaning, and she just sucked him harder. "I'm going to come, I am, you--ahh--" he gasped, looked down to make sure she heard him, that she knew he was about to make a huge mess, but she seemed to just go down harder on his cock. He was hitting the back of her throat now, had to be. His legs locked. It took him. He gripped her scalp, nails digging in, the warmth spilling out from inside, out of his cock, all over the inside of Namine's soft, hot mouth.

She sucked softly now, perfect for his sensitive cock, up and down, taking up the last bits of his come.

Namine rose. Riku's dick plopped to the side out of her mouth.

"Was that good?" she asked softly.

Riku nodded blankly, still reeling slightly.

"Good," she said. She smiled slightly. Licked a bit of come from her lips. "I think I'm satisfied now. But maybe tomorrow?"

"Definitely," Riku blurted. "I mean, uh. What I mean is that I'd like that. Where did you learn to do that?"

Namine's smile faded. "I don't know," she said quietly.

Oh.

Sometimes Riku wished Marluxia was alive again just so he could have the pleasure of killing the fucker himself.

"But, um," said Namine quickly, "I really liked this. Tomorrow's good then?"

"If you're okay with that."

"I am."

Riku got dressed while Namine cleaned up a bit. "I guess," she said, "we both have some work to do now, huh."

"I guess so." So many Organization ops to spy on, so many secret messages to pass to the King, so little time. "You didn't lose control, though, did you?"

"Hm?"

"You were so worried about that," said Riku. "You didn't have to be."

"I guess so."

"Yeah."

Another awkward silence. _Should we cuddle?_ Riku wondered, but maybe it was too late for that now. The whole atmosphere seemed wrong now. Maybe next time. No, definitely next time. The idea of just holding her there on the bed...Riku wanted to laugh. Real degenerate handholding shit, the exact junk that Riku used to mock Sora for a lifetime ago.

Riku left after a nervous, fidgety sort of kiss, stepping out to look for Organization activity in Halloween Town. Namine watched him enter the Corridor of Darkness and close it.

She slammed her door and threw herself onto the bed then. It hadn't been enough, of course it hadn't been enough.

 _There's something wrong with me_ , she thought as she touched herself, her panties between her ankles. _I'm sick. He was right._ Dark figures in her imagination all around her, stroking her, touching her, guiding her fingertips. _It wasn't enough. It'll never be enough. I'm polluted. I'm ruined. Not even a human, anyway. Not much to corrupt_.

She turned out the lights so she wouldn't have to see her own body. She could still hear the slick sounds, though, and the quiet sobbing.

* * *

 

The Destiny Islands were the primo vacation spot, all sunlight and bright sand, all friendly people and gleaming ocean. Or at least, they were supposed to be.

Axel walked the streets of the only city in the islands, chakrams at the ready. The ground was knotted with faint violet veins, a thin layer of flesh spreading over the pavement. He knelt to touch it. Warm and wet. Well, why not go full movie character? He licked his finger. Sweet, too, and...something more.

Some kind of toxin. Axel grimaced, felt his blood quicken, his cock stiffen. Oh, great. This could only go well.

The air was thick with pink fog. _If the Organization doesn't get gas masks or like, anything better than black robes at all, I swear to Czernabog that I'm going to unionize._ Demyx always looked like a pinko. Maybe he'd make a good first comrade?

There was something blocking Axel from entering Beast's Castle. Always a great sign when a world develops a living firewall, eh? Even better when the Dark Corridors go full sideways and spit you out on a totally different world. Cherry on top: the world is...wrong.

But that was okay. Even the toxins were okay.

Axel was here on a mission for his Organization to save his two best friends from whatever-the-fuck had snatched them out of Beast's Castle. He would do that. Then he would tear every single motherfucker apart on the Islands or in Beast's Castle or anywhere that could ever threaten his friends ever again.

And then he would probably go masturbate a lot, because the aphrodisiac was probably going to make the next few days of his life a living hell.

Human-like forms lumbered through the pink fog, dark and uncertain. Axel grinned venomously.

Well.

No harm in switching the order up a bit, hmm?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're rapidly approaching the end of this first volume of _Thanatos._ It's been a truly bizarre ride. I hope you've been...enjoying it? Is that the right word? I don't really know, but please figure out what the right word is. There are only two chapters left in this volume before the Great Dark Hiatus.
> 
> [Of course, I also have a (thoroughly NSFW) Tumblr where I...mostly reblog hentai tbqh, but I'm sure I'll do something useful with it eventually. Maybe. Probably not? Anyway, I always appreciate a follow! ;) Whether or not you take me up on that, I hope you have a wonderful day / night / timeless void!](http://skyler-slapdash.tumblr.com/)


	6. Where All Roads Meet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Namine goes shopping. Everything is a-okay with Kairi, thanks for asking. Axel washes his weapons. Roxas plays with some toys.
> 
> All roads meet. There will be blood.

 

Every clerk at Hojo's Hentai Emporium in Twilight Town had a Story, usually more than one. Most of them were disgusting, some were amusing, and all of them were unforgettable...though some of them you wanted to forget. When the blonde-haired girl threw her bag on the counter with a _thwump_ , the new clerk Breqwin knew that he finally had a Story of his own.

"Err." Breqwin peered out from around the mountainous shopping bag to the small blonde girl on the other end of the counter. She didn't look old enough to buy these things, right? And even if she was, there was no way someone her age could afford all this junk. "Welcome t-to Hojo's Hentai Emporium," Breqwin stumbled.

"'Thanks," said the girl. She was red-faced. Normal for most first-time customers, to be so bashful. But then again, she didn't _look_ bashful. She looked...turned on?

Breqwin swallowed. _I mustn't be a creep. I mustn't be a creep. I mustn't be a creep....._ Mr. Hojo could be a wastoid to all the sex-toy and porn buyers, but the rest of the staff tried to promote a positive atmosphere.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"And then some," said the girl. She wrapped a lock of her blonde hair around her white finger, round and round. It was hypnotizing. "It's been an educational experience."

"Good!" said Breq a little too loudly. "I'll just--" and he remembered himself "--can I see your ID?"

The girl reached into her dress--where were the pockets on that thing?--and pulled out a wallet.

 **NAMINE KAORU. AGE 24.** Right. Okay, sure. Well, under the light behind the counter, it seemed to check out. If it was a fake, it was a damned good one.

So it was a damned good one.

Breq reached into the bag and started to scan the items. There was...a lot.

Butt plugs. Nipple clamps. Power wands, blindfolds, gags, handcuffs, at least three dildos. And the girl just stood there as Breq scanned, flushing redder and redder. She was beginning to smile.

Breq swallowed, scanned the last few items. He was being taken for a ride, no doubt--err, that is, tricked. Pranked. No way she had the money for this. _But I bet I know how you could pay_ , he thought suddenly. Not that he would do that. Right? Definitely not.

For sure.

The girl handed him a pitch black card, he scanned, and it all checked out.

"God damn it," he mumbled.

"Is something wrong?" The girl asked, blinking up at him. Smiling, doe-eyed, the girl seemed to be having a bit of fun after all.

"No."

"Are you sure?" the girl cooed, pouting. She leaned over the counter of the sex shop, batting her eyelashes. "Is there anything at all I can help you with?" Her lips were so full, her eyes so bright and blue. Her white dress hung just loose enough for him to catch a glimpse of her breasts , milky skin around two stiff, tasty-looking nipples.

The girl leaned a little closer...and snatched the credit card from his hand, along with the bag. "Alright, then. Thanks!"

Namine skipped outside, giggling to herself, her nerves evaporating. It had turned out to be just a bit creepier than she'd thought, though the saleswoman on the floor was rather sweet. Hopefully DiZ wouldn't look too closely at his finances. Then again, she wasn't sure how much longer she wanted to be at the mansion anyway.

Running away with Riku. Now _there_ was a thought. Not to get too romantic about it. I mean, it was obviously just a fling, wasn't it? No one would really want to run away with someone like her.

Namine pushed the dark thoughts away. Nope. It was time to go home and try out some new toys before the big night.

And in the sex store, miserable Breq watched the girl run down the alleys of Twilight Town with her treasure trove of perversions. "Boss? I'm going to need a bathroom break."

***

Everything was okay and everything was okay and all manner of things were okay.

Kairi looked out the window of her room on the second floor, listening for doors opening, watching the once-human things stumble around in the fog and thought: _Everything will be alright_. She thought it till her head stung. She poured over every letter of the words till she was on the verge of screaming.

She felt divorced from herself--not from her body, but from her entire self. Perhaps Kairi was wandering the pink fog down there. Perhaps Selphie had dug her fingers into Kairi's heart and pulled her out to devour in the locker room, in the tears, in the water.

Such a dreamlike world made Kairi almost believe that the boy really existed. The boy with the Key, the one she remembered caring about so deeply, and the final member of their trinity, the silver-haired boy with the cocky smile. But she'd been alone, she had always been alone save the distant admiration of Selphie (the monster), and she was alone now too surrounded by monsters with familiar faces.

The faces were changing now. Was it the fog? Was it time? The things in the streets were not all walking. Some scampered. Some oozed their way over the fleshy streets.

Kairi realized that she was crying again. She took a sip of water. Hydration. Important.

No, the boy with the Key would have saved her by now if he'd been anything more than a dream.

Alone.

But the dreams wouldn't leave her alone. They were all she had, sitting up in her room, jumping at the smallest of sounds--after all, even if her parents came home, there was no telling if they would be themselves.

In the dreams, she remembered a door to other worlds. Trimmed with gold, made of wood, it spewed darkness but it promised exit. It was just a dream, though.

Perhaps it was better to follow a dream than to wait for one.

* * *

 

Heartless didn't bleed. Nobodies didn't either, though Axel rarely fought Nobodies. Now, at the beach near town, Axel found himself washing his chakrams in the ocean. Not that the ocean was clean either; it had taken on a vaguely pink tint with flecks of drifting pulp.

The waves still carried the magenta blood away. The pieces of gore took longer.

 _If I had a heart, I might be sick_ , thought Axel, and he laughed, and then he felt a bit sick anyway. The things in town were something new, something terrible. They skittered and howled, but their yellow eyes had whites. Yellow eyes like Heartless, sure, but there were still...

(Axel swallowed. Yes, he was feeling sick)

...patches of human skin in the fleshy violet mass of their bodies.

Not that it bothered him, that the things were once human. Many of the Heartless were. All of the Nobodies were. It really wasn't any different. But...

"Roxas. Xion," Axel whispered. If the things had hurt them, Axel would kill every last one of them. Human or not.

As for consequences, Axel was used to feeling sick.

But those yellow eyes...

* * *

 

Things were going swimmingly in the Destiny Islands.

Roxas beamed with satisfaction, partly from how bad his pun had been, but mostly from his work. How proud Belle must be in her castle! All around him, the people of the Island were in the process of being Uplifted. It was a carnival of pleasure, with Roxas the ringmaster. Aside from the lack of some princess or another he'd been told to look for, things couldn't be going better. And that information was going to be forthcoming...

"Are you having fun?" Roxas cooed.

The two star athletes of Destiny High, Wakka and Tidus, lay restrained on two beds in what had once, a lifetime or three ago, been the Nurse's office. The nutritional and anti-drug posters hung in shreds on the walls. A cabinet lay in chunks of iron, spilling its guts of bandages and cough medicine onto the floor. A floor that looked less like tile now, and more like something alive....

For whatever reason, Tidus and Wakka had been particularly hard nuts to crack...no matter how hard they'd nutted. The miasma-infected floor around them was occupied by a sea of heaving bodies. The party that had started in Selphie's classroom had moved, for the most part, to this office.

Tidus was almost gone. His mattress was soaked with sweat, and his cock stung through the pleasure as the Uplifted Agnes Oblige, sitting beside his bed, stroked him absently, mostly focused on the devil-may-care playboy Ringabel, who was eating her out so damn right that she'd already came nine times in the last hour. Not that he could see any of that. No, he was vigorously eating out Agnes's best friend Edea, who stood over him, moaning, her pussy dripping as he flicked her clit and kissed her folds like he was starved for them.

Wakka watched helplessly. He knew his own limits, knew that it was only a matter of time before he too gave in. But watching his best friend get tormented into becoming one of those things masquerading as their friends...that was something else. He bit his lip, shaken from his worry again. His girlfriend, Lulu, was beginning to grind his cock between her massive, marvelous tits. They'd always tried to do that, and somehow it just hadn't worked. But now...now...

Roxas shook his head like a teacher catching his students misbehaving. "You _do_ look like you're having fun, huh? Well, I've got good new for you. It's all fun from here on out. All fun forever and ever. But before we can get to that, I've still got my question: where's the princess?"

"I told you, we don't--ahmm--we don't have a princess here, yeah?" Wakka glanced down--Lulu had cackled at that, shook her head, slowed down her titfuck just a little bit in response.

"That's not what I heard. You two saw her, I was told. What do you call her here? Oh, right. Kairi." Roxas frowned, as if troubled by something. Who knew with him, though? Him and the girl, Xion, they weren't human. They couldn't be. No human could do something like this to other humans. "Kairi," Roxas repeated, shaking his head as if to shake something out of his hair. "You saw her escape from Selphie just before both of them went missing," said Roxas.

Tidus didn't have much more of it in him. Wakka recognized that look on his face, or at least what he could see of it. Edea was rubbing herself on him now, back and forth, as he ate her out. He was thrusting into Agnes's hand as she stroked him. Losing himself. Something so sweet and so beautiful, as long as it wasn't _here_. As long as it wasn't like _this_.

Wakka struggled against the restraints, wanting to just _do something_ , desperate to fight and get cut down like a man. Lulu sighed--"You must be joking"--and brought her breasts down again, leaning to kiss the tip of his cock. All at once he wanted to scream, wanted to come, one or the other or both--but neither, neither. Gotta stay strong.

Is that how it worked? You came and they took you? No, he'd come before, hadn't he? And he was still himself.

Wasn't he?

More moaning and panting from down on the floor. Terra the Wiccan girl was frigging Ringabel's ass, the massive pervert, all while the gym teacher Lightning rode him mercilessly. Tiz was railing senior Quistus from behind, pulling her hair and spanking her....

"Listen," said Roxas, leaning against the broken cabinet, smiling oh-so-widely. A _we're all friends here_ smile. "All you've gotta do is tell us where your friend is, and you know what we're going to do? We're going to make her happy. Don't you want that? Aren't you a good friend?"

"I, I," Wakka stammered, bucking his hips, thrusting between Lulu's boobs. She brought her mouth down lower, took his tip into her warm mouth, and that broke the dam again. He poured his hot white come into her, thrusting still, legs tensing, gasping, crying Lulu's name, hoping she'd really here it. And then they were at it again, never resting, never stopping. Hard again. And it was...it was almost nice....

"It's gonna happen in time. You know that, right? You're not special. You're not a hero. You don't _have_ to be a hero, either. Nobody in this whole school was a hero. Nobody on the whole island was, actually. That's okay! Don't be a hero. Just let yourself go."

Wakka shook his head like a seizure victim. "No. Nononono. No."

Lulu had already moved on. She was crawling on the bed over his restrained legs, rubbing her pussy, smirking down at him. It was a nice smirk. Familiar.

"Lulu." Worth a shot. He'd tried so many times. "This isn't right. We both know it. You shouldn't--you can't--"

She tilted her head, put a finger to her lip as if thinking about it. Then she spun around, her ass facing him, and guided his cock into her pussy. Another nervous gasp of pleasure from Wakka. In the bed beside him, Tidus and Edea and Agnes were in the midst of another group orgasm, their voices raising, entwined just like their bodies.

Roxas nodded suddenly. "Okay," he said. "I get it now. You want Lulu back, don't you?"

Wakka was in no position to answer. Lulu was riding him harder than ever; the juices of her cunt were intoxicating, perhaps _really_ intoxicating, and he had somehow come already and knew he would come again soon. He caught himself thrusting, tried not to. Wished he could turn her around and looking into her eyes...but her bouncing ass was such a sweet sight.

"Then it's easy. Just give in. You can be with her that way. There. Fixed it. We don't have a problem anymore, do we?"

Wakka moaned. Thrust deep, hard, wet. Warm. Ass bounced. Lulu's. On the bed beside him, Tidus--but it wasn't about Tidus now. There were just Roxas's words, his promise, and the sensation of Lulu's body, and they had eaten through his walls so quickly, or those walls were already almost crumbled and he somehow hadn't noticed.

Lulu. "I can feel you, Wakka," she moaned, bucking her hips. "Are you ready?"

"Mmhm."

"Come for me. Come inside me and it'll come inside you."

Lulu's insides seemed to tighten, to warm up, to almost stroke him as he thrust. It was more than he could bear; he gripped the bed, tearing through the sheets, into the mattress itself, and as the orgasm flowed out from his center around through his body, something rode along with it. Something oily, dark, sweet like dark chocolate.

He could feel it wrapping around his heart like the lovely restraints tying him to the bed, the restraints that he'd hours ago associated with the scent of sex and the sensation of skin.

"Wakka? Wakka? Are you okay?" Tidus cried.

"I'm better than okay, brah," said Wakka. His thrusts were leisurely now; his whole body was alive with orgasm now. Even the touch of the bed beneath him sent his senses spinning. "She went home, Roxas."

"Where? What castle?"

Lulu giggled. "Why would she live in a castle? There aren't any castles here."

Roxas blinked. "Don't...most people live in castles? Especially princesses?"

And so, while taking a break to feast upon the pleasures of the Nurse's Office and wearing through the last bits of Tidus's resistance (aww, he was crying! how cute!), Roxas learned what all those "house" things were actually for.

* * *

 

The clouds of pleasure were gone from Selphie's mind, and the bare sky was a nightmare.

There were things in the streets. Selphie wondered how many she had spoken to before. Certainly, some of them shared faces and bodies with people she had known before...all of this had happened. Others had changed. They did not walk so much as writhe, twitch their way across the street as if their bodies were too tense with need for consistent movement. Horns and tentacles and yellow eyes...and the worst of it was that Selphie had seen them all in visions after the kids in black had come to town to ~~Uplift~~ infect her. With the sickness inside of her, it had all seemed so miraculous.

Those that were too weak to maintain a human form could find a more primal form with more primal pleasures. Those that could not find the strength for even that form would be consumed by the miasma....

Occasionally that oversimplified explanation would crack into pieces, and the fullness of the horror would creep into Selphie's mind, bringing her to her knees for a moment, covering her ears as if that would stop secrets from echoing around and around in her mind. If any of the Uplifted patrols spotted her then, she knew it would've been over. She would be "fixed" of her glitch and returned to being...that thing.

 _Kairi. You hate me._ And that was probably alright. Selphie wondered why she was looking for Kairi anyway. What purpose would it serve, going around town to all of Kairi's haunts? Did she expect Kairi to forgive her? Did she expect Kairi to kill her?

Maybe she just wanted someone to be with, now that the end was near. They wouldn't even have to look at one another. Just...exist in the same space as the last shreds of hope and love were swallowed by disease.

Selphie had spied on the arcade they'd frequented, the library, and every haunt she could think of. Which was absurd--why would she pick someplace that Selphie would bother to think of?--but it wasn't like she could search every island, let alone just this one. Especially not with those things oozing and shuddering their way through town.

And now she was at the end of the list. There was just Kairi's house, and then she was out of ideas. Selphie glanced back at the street--nothing, at least right then--and stood in the doorway for a second. Social etiquette in a zombie apocalypse after violating the trust of the love of your life.

Are you supposed to knock?

Selphie thought back to what she'd do if she was still infected. Probably just kick the door down, drooling, and spout some sinister, sexy line about lust or need or some bullshit.

Selphie knocked.

There wasn't an answer, naturally. But she knocked again, knowing it was pointless. And again, one more time.

Okay. Okay, maybe just one more.

Very suddenly, Selphie realized that she was crying. Just a few tears, running hot down her cheeks. Silent--no sobs. She swallowed, rubbed her nose on her sleeve. Felt like a child.

She knocked.

The door opened.

Kairi stood in the doorway. Her red hair frizzed to the sides, wild like her wide blue eyes. Her hands shook as they clutched the butcher knife. She pulled her arms back--stopped herself. Looked. Really looked.

"Hi, Kairi. Um. It's the apocalypse. Do you...do you wanna hang out?"

"Selphie." The knife slipped from her fingers.

"I guess," said Selphie.

"Your eyes."

Selphie wiped the tears from them. "I'm sorry."

"No."

"Uh, yeah, actually."

"Do you," Kairi gestured vaguely towards the inside of the house. "want to come in? I don't want anybody in the street to see this."

"You'd let me?"

"Sure. Don't try any funny stuff, though."

"I won't."

"Unless I ask you to."

"Yeah."

"That was a joke."

"Okay."

They stood on opposite sides of the doorway for a moment. And before Selphie could react, Kairi's hands were clasping her waist and back, pulling her tight, pulling her close. Smelled like tears. Lips were dry. The kiss was still sweet as it had ever been, for all the caution now and all the pain of the last day. Selphie's hand crept to the small of her back and raked against it slightly with her nails.

They pulled apart, suddenly conscious. Yeah. Zombie apocalypse and such.

"Uh," said Kairi, stepping into the living room. "Don't step on that butcher knife, okay?"

* * *

 

It would be charitable to say that they didn't have much of a plan. Really, it was just a gamble on a dream or a memory, or something. But the border between dreams and reality had grown awfully thin over the past few days, and the two of them felt just lost enough to give it a shot.

The strange door in Kairi's dreams was on the play island. They'd steal a boat from the docks and sail their way there, crawl into the secret place--

"Hold on, what secret place?"

"Secret place?" Kairi sighed. "Didn't I tell you about this? I know I told somebody. It was a secret place I had, just me and my friends. A cove near that waterfall?"

"You never told me. Maybe it was Tidus and Wakka?"

"It wasn't them."

"Maybe it was that mystery boy?"

Kairi shook her head. "No teasing. Not right now."

"I wasn't teasing."

Anyway, they'd steal a boat from the docks and sail their way to the play island, crawl into the secret place, and find the door. From there, they'd...open...it? Somehow?

"That's all I've got," Kairi admitted. "I wish I had more to go on."

They sat on the floor of Kairi's room in the dark at 11 AM, windows open to let in the feeble light of a dying sun. Kairi had rested in her bed, Selphie on the couch downstairs. Rest, not sleep. Not with the noises outside, and the ever-thicker sickly sweet pink fog descending on the island.

"It's enough," said Selphie, not sure whether to believe her own words. "Hey. Kairi."

"Mm?"

"What did you do to me? When we kissed. Or...I guess I kissed you, and you pushed it out of me. You know. _It_. The...the stuff."

Kairi wrung her hands. "Is that what happened?"

"You don't know?"

"Can we not talk about this right now?" Kairi snapped. Selphie winced. "I'm sorry. I just need time. You hurt me. I know you were sick, but you _hurt_ me."

"I know," said Selphie.

Quiet and darkness.

"Do you think we can be okay again?" asked Selphie.

"I do," said Kairi. "Just. Time, you know?"

"I got you."

The girls went downstairs to look for knives. It was no surprise that there were plenty in Kairi's house. After all, Kairi's father had been quite the cook, serving up mouth-watering gourmet dishes that made the whole house smell like heaven. (Or maybe that wasn't like heaven smelled like. If not, heaven was a disappointment.)

They scooped the knives up, six or seven or more on each of them, and every second was harder there on the first floor.

Maybe Kairi's parents hadn't been Uplifted. Maybe they were safe somewhere. Or maybe they were dead. Selphie ran the options through her head again and again, and nothing made the first floor feel less like a mausoleum.

Family photographs and dust. Outside, the shuffling of monsters.

They finished collecting knives. Selphie paced back and forth on the edge of the doorway now, waiting for Kairi to pick out the perfect knife to stuff in her jacket pocket.

She stopped. "Hey, Kairi. I just thought of something."

"Mmm?" Kairi lifted the knife, brushed a finger over the edge to test it. Good enough.

"First, promise not to stab me?"

"I'm not gonna stab you."

"You say that _now_...."

"I'm not. Gonna. Stab you." Which was very nice to hear. Would've been nicer if Kairi wasn't swinging the knife around every few syllables.

"Great," said Selphie. "Well. Heregoes. We might have to pretend to be infected."

"Pretend how?"

"With the, uh," Selphie crossed her fingers to avoid stab central, "groping."

Kairi flushed. "You can't be serious. You want to start feeling me up? Haven't you seen enough of me these past few days?"

"Not interested. At all," said Selphie.

Kairi gave her a look.

"Okay, good point. Yeah, I love getting a palmful of Kairi, and I know this is not a great time for that. Just trust me when I say that I don't really _want_ a scoop of booby right now. We just so happen to be dealing with a horny apocalypse. A...hornpocalypse? Whatever. It's horn or be horned out there, is what I'm saying. I should know, I was one of the horners." Selphie grinned. In the back of her mind, the actual memories of what she had been gnawed at her, horrible and vicious and draining. Smile. Just smile for Kairi, if nobody else.

"Okay," said Kairi. The smile actually worked. Oh god, Selphie had felt like such a douchebag, but Kairi was smiling again. Made it all worth it. "Let's get grabby."

The streets were empty as they left, and swarmed as they turned the corner. They looked back just long enough to see vile, heaving throngs of Uplifted crowd around Kairi's house--and then the two were gone, avoiding looking back, always ahead for any Uplifted in their path, always closing their blue eyes and digging into one another's clothes when they hit a thick throng of beasts.

The miasma crept up the streetlights oddly. The lights flashed, casting lunatic shadows on the inhuman forms as they passed, daring glances at times, hoping they wouldn't notice anything awry. How would they know if they were caught when the things in the street were only echoes of human forms, twitching, pulsating, gushing horrible fluids onto now-fleshy streets?

On their way to the docks, they escaped within one another. The warmth of their bodies, the occasional kiss, the wanderings hands began as an act to fool the Uplifted and became an echo of _**(link here**_ ) that party from so long ago, when everything was sweet and theirs to devour, interlocked on the sofa of Tidus's father, both of them drunk long past midnight.....

They passed the upper class residential areas. Laughter echoed there, maniacal, wild. Strange music echoed through the streets, and the sound of moans and cries.

They passed the storefronts. The glass windows were broken. The two of them played games in their heads with what had been stolen and what was left. Who would steal this? Who would leave that? What kind of person? Living or dead or Uplifted?

Stories told by ruins.

And they passed crowds of others walking through the streets.

Listen if you want to the moans and cries, the wet slapping noises, the groans, all the familiar sounds. But please--

Don't look at them.

Don't.

They'll know.

***

The field of Uplifted bodies around Axel did not conveniently vanish. They did not burst into orbs or coins, into clouds of darkness or nothingness. They simply began the slow, imperceptible process of decomposition.

It definitely did not bother him. He was fine. He would find Roxas and Xion and they would go to Twilight Town and eat junk food and everything would be just fine. Anything strange about this mission could be brought to the attention of the rest of the Organization. They would do a deep dive into the mysteries and figure out what was wrong and, together, they would kill it.

All of them. Axel, Roxas, Xion, and the whole of the Organization.

Axel did his best to weave around the inhuman bodies lying in the street, riddled with chakram gashes, burnt from fire magic. He tried not to step on anyone--anything, that is, definitely anything.

He really did.

Perhaps he'd return to the beach to wash his chakrams. Just, you know. Weapon maintenance. Very important, Larxene had told him again and again. But she was dead now.

Axel, who knew very well that he could not feel emotion, found himself numbering the people--and the Nobodies--that he knew who were dead.

There wouldn't be anymore, though. They'd go back--Roxas and Xion--and Axel would risk the Superior's wrath by daring to ask for another day off to celebrate surviving such a weird, awful experience, and....

Axel walked through the streets, muttering to himself, chakrams at the ready.

* * *

 

At the center of the city, under the flickering streetlight that provided little light beneath the dying sun, there was a boy with a key. The lights played strangely on the silver metal of the weapon, a cobweb of violet veins running along its shaft. A hood hung over his head. The boy was smiling.

Kairi saw him there in the center, where all roads met, and her heart leaped.

"It's him," she whispered to Selphie. "The boy from my dreams."

But Selphie's hand was shaking.

The boy in black turned to them and, for a long moment, stood motionless beneath the flickering streetlight. Key and rippling leather gleamed.

"Sora?" Kairi cried. The name tasted strange on her tongue. But yes, she'd said it before, she could feel it in her heart.

"Sora, you said?" the boy turned to face them.

Selphie's fingernails dug into Kairi's palm. "Don't," Selphie whispered.

Kairi pulled her hand back. "Selphie, he can help. I know him."

"No," said Selphie. "You don't."

Hood still drawn, the boy slowly walked towards the girls. The key. The boy. Even if it wasn't too late to runn now, Kairi knew that if they ran she would never _know_. She'd never find out about the boy in her dreams with the key, the one who in the dreams had saved her life, had stood in a dim waterway with her and made a promise.

"Do you have my lucky charm?" Kairi found herself asking, voice shaking.

The boy stood before them now. He tossed his head, his hood falling back. "The princess and the traitor," said the boy. His yellow eyes gleamed like those of an animal.

Kairi took a step back. _It's not supposed to go like this_.

The boy stepped forward. "Lucky charm?"

"Y-you promised to bring it back to me."

He snapped his fingers. "Can't say I remember anything like that. But you know, if you came with me, I bet that could ring a bell or two."

"I..."

The boy, now smiling widely, extended a black-gloved hand. "We'll go together."

"And Selphie?"

His smile flickered. " _Traitors_ to the Uplifted aren't allowed. She'll stay. We'll keep her safe, though. Probably ask a few questions and stuff. I bet Belle would love to hear how she rejected our little gift."

"If Kairi's going, I'm going with her. You won't stop me."

"Don't. Push. Your luck."

"You heard her, Sora. That's our deal."

The boy sighed. "Alright. I hate to do this, but you've left me no choice. Selphie's going to die, and then I'll bring you to heaven. For real this time." He raised the key. The sickly-sweet smell of the fog rose to Kairi's nostrils, made her blood boil, her body ache. It was getting thicker now. Clouds of red spread across his cold amber eyes. The infected boy licked his lips. "You're going to be so happy. We all are."

He pulled the keyblade back.

and lunged

and Selphie lunged too.

Light flashed. A metal sound. Kairi found herself tossed aside onto the warm, breathing ground. Selphie stood before the boy, six long dark tentacles slithering from her body, gleaming wet, blocking the keyblade.

It had been inches from her face.

Kairi gaped. "Selphie?"

Roxas blinked. Opened his mouth to speak, closed it. " _What?_ "

Another clash of metal, another flash of blinding light, and the two of them stumbled backward on either end of the four-way crossroad. The interloper stood in the center now, dusting himself off with his wrists. "Beach is a bit of a wreck, isn't it?"

The boy laughed. "Axel. I was wondering when you'd show up."

Axel shook his head, grinning. "Good seeing you too, Roxas. Natives are all riled up. I think it's time I got you and Xion out of here. Why don't we finish off squidgirl--"

Selphie flushed. " _Squidgirl_?"

"--and I get the two of you back home to the castle?"

"Oh, Axel," said Roxas. "Going back to the castle with you would be such a pleasure."

And Axel noticed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to take a moment to pause here and thank you, the reader. I mean that. This is one of the weirdest things I've ever written, which says a lot, and it warms my heart that there are people who actually care about it. Thanks for sticking with Thanatos.
> 
> The next chapter will be the last before the end of this first volume, along with a possible epilogue to the volume. At that point this story will go on hiatus. This is a passion project of mine--I wouldn't be working on it if it wasn't--but I have other pieces of work that I want to put out, and this story has been designed to be in three distinct parts.
> 
> Again: thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.


	7. SHADOWPLAY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is death.

Once upon a time there was a hungry book.

(This was the version of the predicament that Belle was currently humoring as the game pieces met in the Destiny Islands. In the flesh-caverns of her transformed home she mused and laughed and wept, playing with her own emotions as if they were all games, all of them, all rulesets to impose on...

...well, most of them were not technically people, so she was therefore not entirely irredeemable.)

In the castle she hugged a book against her breast, a yellow paged nightmare called _Der Vermis Mysteriis_. It was full of wonders. Her mind was crawling, delighting, ensnared by its worms.

Though Belle did not know it, a Beast was lying in the cells of her dungeon. Breathing slow. Tired. Hungry.

 ~~Brainwashed~~ Uplifted servants are unreliable. Perhaps Roxas and Xion would return to feed and water the prisoners in time. Perhaps not.

(We'll find out together. Give it time.)

At any rate, none of these things were all that important to this thing calling itself Belle. There was only the book against her breasts; she rubbed it against her erect nipples, flicking it against the edge, imaging the blasphemous words themselves fucking her, but even that deliciously lewd image, that vision of words curling inside of her pussy and ravaging her, going farther perhaps, fucking her mouth and her ass, coming inside every one of her holes without ceasing wasn't enough.

Never enough.

Nothing enough.

Nothing ever.

Belle cracked the book open, still warm from her curvaceous body, and began to read.....

* * *

 

The Heartless weren't attacking in Twilight Town. This was vaguely terrifying.

In an empty street, a dark alley, any liminal space barren of other people, the Heartless would seek outsiders from other worlds. Animal instinct told them that outsiders had strong hearts, ripe for the harvest, and they would rise from angles like hungry hounds. Without a Keyblade, there was no way to banish them--but that was hardly necessary, because such a low population rarely ever bothered attacking the population.

What was wrong, then? Why weren't they coming? Did it mean anything? Nervous in spite of himself, Riku left the streets of Twilight Town before anyone could start asking the weird goth boy in black any uncomfortable questions, making for the mansion.

The entire day had been strange, now that he thought about it. DiZ had asked all kinds of strange questions about his credit card, of all things. Riku hadn't even known that DiZ _owned_ a credit card, though the idea of DiZ walking into a bank in full drama-lord regalia made him snort with laughter in the middle of DiZ's little interrogation. Then there was Namine an hour or so later, who was so eager to push Riku out to get to his daily errands that it seemed...off, somehow. Usually she wanted him to stay for as long as possible.

Riku paused at the mansion door. Sniffed.

Something was burning.

Instinct took over. He slammed Soul Eater into the door--it flew off of its hinges and across the room--and raced inside. "Namine? DiZ?"

"Oh, shit." Well, one of them was accounted for. Namine stood near the top of the left stairwell with a match in one hand and a Ziploc **®** bag of rose petals in the other. Candles lined the sides of each step, a quarter of them lit, the rest not. "Hi Riku."

"Something's burning."

Namine pointed at the candles.

"Okay?"

"This is awkward," said Namine.

"I know. I can't believe I'm back this early."

Namine blinked. "That's awkward too, I guess?"

"Are you performing some kind of ritual?"

"Oh god." Namine facepalmed. "Riku. These rose petals? These candles? Do you...do you watch TV?"

"Yeah. Anime," said Riku, which was thoroughly unsurprising.

"This is a thing people do when they want to...to...I don't know. I saw it once." Namine gestured vaguely at the candles and the rose petals. "And you were going to walk up the stairs past the rose petals and the candles and I was going to be on the bed, and...and it was going to be nice."

That did sound pretty nice, actually. "Um. I'm sorry. I didn't mean--"

"No, no, it's fine! I didn't realize how long it would take to, you know, set up all the candles and then light them, and then get the rose petals right. Also, it's way more time consuming to get rose petals than I thought it would be. That took time too."

"You took all that time for me," said Riku, laughing softly.

Namine blushed. "I'm sorry."

"No, _I'm_ sorry. I don't know why you'd take all that time for somebody like me."

"Why do you still say these things?" Namine was blowing out the candles, one by one, and slipping the petals back into her Ziploc **®** bag. "Why are you so mean to yourself?"

"I'll learn to be nice to myself when you figure it out. Hey, Namine. Need help cleaning that up?"

She did. They did. There was nothing sexier, Namine mused, than a boy who helps with the cleaning.

After that they came to the edge of Namine's door. On the edge of Namine's door they paused. Beyond the door was Namine's room, which they had both seen before. It shouldn't have been odd.

Namine took a sharp breath and pushed the door open. The other hand she held open. He held it and squeezed.

She pulled him inside.

* * *

 

The darkness ate the sun soundlessly. No one even noticed. Whatever light shone on Destiny Islands was a pale echo, stale, reverberating coldly and endlessly on the shambling, fucking bodies of the once-human populace of a once-thriving town.

There were four of them there on the crossroads, under the empty sky.

First: a thing that had once been a boy. Tossed from cult to cult, he stood with his Keyblade high, tight-lipped-grinning, penis stiff under his black leather robes. The idea of feeling good was still new and raw to him, but now _everything_ felt good. Even breathing brought waves of pleasure. If anything felt bad at all, ever, all he had to do was cry long enough for the Uplifted feelings to recognize how wrong it was to feel bad, to pull him back into heaven. And now here was Axel, coming back at last to be stolen away to be with the other two members of the trio. Forever. Everything could finally be okay now. Properly okay. _Complete._ That was the word. There was only the question of the princess, Kairi, and the traitor.

Second: the unwitting princess. Kairi rocked from foot to foot at the edge of the intersection, her arm wrapped tight around the waist of her lover. This was supposed to be him. The dream boy. What was his name again?̢̭͔̹͖͇̣̘̖̊ͯ̒ͬͩ̑̃̌̇͊̄̓͒͜͡S̵̛̲̻̟̻̙̠ͧ̈́͗̋̀ͪ̓͂͂́͂̽ͫ͞o̢̺̞̩̙̩͙̹͉̳̱̖͚̣͆̃͛͋̉̓̊̒ͬ̇ͣ̾͋͑ͦ͟͠ŗ̵̭͔̼̜͓̮̺͓̱̻͕͕̳͎̣̜̒̿͑̐ͣ͛̋̄ͣ̔̑̑͢ͅa̸̵̢̛̮͎̠̻̘̼̬̠̫͖̖̬̘̪̣̩̠ͥ̅ͤ͊͢.̸̵̩̙̻̭̬̮͍̘̯̩̬̙̻̪͈̓̋͋͛ͯ̑ͧͦͥͨ̆͂̈̓͗͐͒͑̽͟͠͡ͅ.̥̯͎̻͉̝̰̪̭͔͙̣̮́̐͆͋ͧ͂͊̔ͤͮ͐̽̿̆͜͞.Something like that. Dizzy when she even approached the name. And this Sora, this boy in front of her, he was just as sick as all the other ones. Just as sick as Selphie had been, as she might still be. Everything had seemed fine with Selphie, and now...this. Again. Perhaps she'd never really be Selphie again. The whole world had slid away from Kairi so slowly and then all at once, and perhaps that meant there was a sickness in her too. She could feel it gestating deep inside her head and in her heart. Entropy. Everything entropy. Even beside her, her abdomen heaving with breath under her arm, Selphie was part of it too--entropy.

Third: the traitor Uplifted. Selphie stared into those cold golden eyes and saw herself staring back. That cocky smile, that assuredness...hadn't she been the same just a few hours ago? Nausea rode in with the memory. The showers. The crying. If this boy woke up too like Selphie had, what would he remember? Would the sheer bile from all those sins kill him? A flood of illness ripping him to pieces from the inside out?

And the infection wouldn't stop. Selphie could feel it writhing in her orifices, hungry, under her direct control for now, but...well. Who could tell?

Selphie debated feeling bad for the boy and decided to kill him first.

Fourth...

"Pardon my language, Roxas, but what the _fuck_ is going on here?" Axel glanced from Roxas to Kairi to Selphie, gripping his chakrams tight, palms sweating under his gloves.

"It's simple, Axel," said Roxas, staring deeply into Selphie's eyes. "We take care of the traitor and go back to the castle. Then I'll tell you everything that's happened."

Selphie shook her head. "Axel's your name?"

"Yep. Got it memo--?"

"Don't listen to a word he's saying. He's sick. He--"

"Oh, you think, squid kid?" Axel rolled his eyes. "What could have possibly given you that idea?"

Roxas pouted. "I feel great."

"Sure you do, buddy. Hey. Squid."

"Selphie."

"Squiddie. Your friend there. Can she fight?"

"I c--" Kairi started.

"She definitely thinks she can," said Selphie.

"Shit," said Axel. "I hate those kinds."

"Kairi's also what your friend over there is looking for, I think. Besides my head on a pike, that is."

"Things get better and better, then." Axel flashed Roxas a saccharine smile. "Hey, buddy."

"Hey," said Roxas. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Why didn't he understand? Why was he being so nice to the traitor? Everything was so pink and foggy. If it would just let up for a second, maybe things would make sense.

"We're going to RTC, you and I. I guess these two, maybe. The Organization will probably want to hear whatever they've gotta say. You'll feel better. Then we can find Xion, right?" Axel laughed. It sounded fake even to him. "Bring her to the castle with us too. It'll all be fine."

Roxas giggled. Honest-to-god-giggled.

Axel knew that, as a Nobody, neither he nor Roxas nor the whole of the Organization could feel fear.

He had been told this many, many times.

"Axel," said Roxas. An _Oh, you!_ bounce to his voice. "Xion's already there at the castle. You didn't think she was just sitting on her hands this whole time, did you?"

Axel swallowed. "Okay. Then she's probably been captured. She'll need you to bail her out. Tell everybody the circumstances."

"I'm sure she's not locked up," said Roxas matter-of-factly.

"Then..." Axel glanced to Selphie, to Kairi. "Hey," he said, and couldn't find the words. Roxas stared up at him so innocently and everything was wrong, everything was so wrong.

"You're so full of shit, Axel," said Roxas. Smiling. "Look at you in your big boots and your billowing black cloak. Pretending that you're the big man in the Organization when you're just as much of a useless shit as the rest of us. You do know that people talk, right? You've got to. You're always so clever, huh?" He pouted again. Axel tasted the air on his tongue. So sweet. Cotton candy pout. "Everyone thinks you're full of shit, you know." Sour air. "Because you're just as much a slave as the rest of the Organization. You keep this up and you'll die like a slave, too."

Axel's mouth was dry. The sweetness of the air. His eyes flicked up and down Roxas's body before he could stop himself. _Only a couple of years. Just a couple. It's fine, really. You've considered it. So has he. You..._ He shook his head, tried to focus on the conversation at hand. "I'm a slave, huh? Then what are you?"

"A _happy_ slave," said Roxas.

"There's no point," said Selphie, "in reasoning with him."

Kairi nodded, not entirely present. She was staring blankly into a mailbox.

In the room, Namine pushed Riku gently onto a bed surrounded by sex toys. They had all been such wonderful ideas, and perhaps she would play with them soon. But she'd been so scared at first about how she felt, about what she wanted to do with him, and maybe she'd overcompensated. Toys and stores and candles and rose petals. And here he was lying on the bed, cock stiff against his leather Organization pants, perfectly delectable. Toys later. Riku now.

On the islands, Axel glanced helplessly from Kairi to Selphie to Roxas. "Are you really Roxas?" he asked. "Or...someone else?"

Roxas raised his keyblade.

Selphie felt for the corruption in her body, felt the coils around her heart, and took hold of them with her will. They gave way consciously this time--three tentacles sprouted from her body, one guarding herself and two guarding Kairi.

Kairi stumbled back onto the ground, terrified.

"It's okay, Kairi," Selphie whispered. "I'll protect you."

"Is this okay?" he said, in the room. Her dress lay on the floor in a heap already and she nodded, her soft white tits perky with need beneath him. He brought his mouth down and oh, his tongue was so hot, and the way he brushed his teeth so lightly against her nipples was divine.

[And Roxas flew at the two girls.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvgbk4MkHF8)

In the room he suckled her breast gently, his other hand flicking her nipple in a way he'd read about online back home, lifetimes ago. Her gasp was feedback enough; he brought tongue, flicked faster. She moaned his name; slowly he rubbed his clothed cock against her leg, sucking, flicking, needing to drive her mad with desire. Needing her to be happy. Needing her to want him.

Selphie blocked the blows inches before they met them, tossed Kairi a couple of meters away from the battle. They were so close that she could--and did--scream in his face. He pushed hard with his blade; she pushed back with her body, fighting the blade as it drew closer to her by centimeters, one, two, three.

(So close was the weapon, the keyblade. Smelled of age and iron stardust and a billion worlds rent to pieces.)

(And closer. O god)

(O god)

(I'm going to die.)

Naturally, that's when Axel slammed his chakrams into Roxas's blade and threw him--bouncing two or three times across the pavement--into a nearby house. The keyblade flew from his hand, skidding and bouncing across the street.

"Squidgirl," said Axel politely.

"Asshole," said Selphie.

"Fuck," gasped Namine. His hand trailed down from her breast--he'd paid due diligence to both, sucking one and playing with the other--and her hungry cunt had been wet before, but now? Now it was--

\--no time to figure that out as his fingers ran down her pubes (were pubes okay? would he get weird about them? why did porn ruin pubes for everyone?) and down, hitting her lips, rubbing up and down experimentally. Good experiment. She rewarded him with a long, slow moan.

Science!

But when his fingers wandered to her clit, they brought fire. She twitched, the fire ran up and down her body. Someone else touching her. It was...it was...there was no time for poetry. She said:

"There. Right there."

"How dare you?" Roxas snarled. The boy walked out of the cloud of dust, brushing off decades of some family's memories without a glance back. "Defending what, this useless, simpering princess? And this other, this...this traitor. I thought you were very into killing traitors, hmm?"

Axel flinched. "I do what I have to do. I don't like it."

"Or dislike it. Or think anything of it at all, do you? It's so easy, I bet."

"Stop." Of course it wasn't easy to root out traitors, to kill fellow Nobodies. So why was he shaking now?

"Axel," said the boy. "I'm...I'm Roxas. You asked if it was me or someone else. It is me. You know that, don't you?"

Kairi snatched the keyblade from the ground and, screaming, sprinted over the broken pavement at Roxas. With the twitch of his hand, the keyblade was back with Roxas...and Kairi stopped dead in her tracks.

Roxas smirked. "Do you think I could get away with killing her?"

"No. Higher. There," Namine moaned. Riku flicked her clit with his tongue, rapid fire, his hands curling deep up inside her cunt. "D-don't stop. Like that. Like--ah!" His lips wrapped around her clit, such soft warm lips, and he sucked slowly while flicking his tongue.

He savored the way her legs twitched, savored the animal smell of her pussy. Her body clenched, she panted faster; his other hand stroked his cock under his pants, dripping with precum. She came so suddenly, her walls contracting around his hand, and he gave her clit a deep, warm suckle as she squirted onto his hands, legs kicking, crying out loud enough that one could hear it halfway to Twilight Town.

"Should I clean up?" he asked, still fingering her absently, his hand slick with her juices.

"Not yet," she said, words spaced by locomotive breath. "Please. Give me your cock. I need it."

"You _stay away from Kairi!"_ Selphie screamed, her tentacles flailing, slicing, landing blow after blow against his keyblade. Parry. Dodge. Parry. Counter. Selphie was the one blocking now, getting pushed back. Roxas grinned madly. _He's toying with me_ , she realized suddenly. _This is a game_.

From behind, Axel struck. Roxas turned, slashed the chakram away, turned back to Selphie, blocked her strikes. The boy was a whirling dervish between them, faster than imaginable, turning and turning, blocking their every strike. His yellow animal eyes shone with lust and fury.

Kairi watched. Her hand tingled oddly--perhaps the sickness was in the boy's blade too, and she was infected. The thought came and went. There they were, Selphie and the mystery man, slashing and fighting, and none of them could even hurt the boy who'd brought the nightmare to her home. Kairi knew she couldn't either. Her butcher knife had slipped from her jacket at some point during the scuffle, but it wouldn't have mattered even if she could use it.

Not against someone--something--like that.

Selphie leaped. Roxas rose his keyblade, she pushed it aside. _Crack._ Tumbled into one another, toppled back into Axel. The three of them fell to the ground, thrashing and kicking, screaming at one another, writhing--

\--with his cock stiff and pointing at the ceiling, looking down at the foot of the bed as Namine climbed up, her white knees sinking into the mattress, her pussy juices running down her legs, droplets soaking the white sheets. She grazed his cock with her cunt, slick juices mingling. His quickening breath begged her to let him inside, but she just kept rocking her hips, teasing the tip of his dick with the lips of her pussy, smiling coquettishly.

"Say please," she said, trying to look calm, blushing bright red. "Or just...nah." She and Riku put their hands on his cock, a weird little moment of cooperation, and-- "--oh fuck, oh _fuck."_ Deep. It was so deep, deeper than her fingers could hit (if not the toys), and it was _him_ , twitching slightly with pleasure, hot and fleshy in her cunt.

They froze.

Riku didn't even breath for a moment. Everything was still. Blurred with pleasure, an image of Namine, sweet Namine, mouth open, nude, breasts rising as she breathed in, falling as she breathed out.

Namine looked down at him, his muscles taut, his eyes so warm. Further down, the silver nest of his pubic hair--she ran a hand down his stomach, to his bush, to the place where there bodies met, and brushed against her clit.

"This is good," she whispered.

"Yeah."

Slowly, she began to rock her hips.

They rolled across the broken pavement. The streetlights flashed one last time before shattering, and all was biting and kicking and punching. Barbs of weapons. Cold metal. Slick, dark tentacles. Teeth. Distantly, someone screaming, but it could wait. There was the fight here, the enemy. Now.

Someone was bleeding. A few people were bleeding, now. Selphie hissed as something sharp pierce her shoulder; Axel snarled at a slap of blunt metal against his neck; Roxas laughed when a flurry of tentacles pierced his torso.

Another scream. Selphie looked up and wanted to scream too.

She moaned, long and low, giving her pussy plenty of time to take in the full motion of his cock. One long arc, forward...

"Mm."

...and slowly...

"Gah."

...back, gliding up the upper walls...

"Oh fuck yes--"

...hitting the highest point, and they could both feel it.

"--yes oh my god yes!"

It wasn't enough. She went faster, he thrust against her. Perfect matching rhythms.

"Fuck me fuck me fuck me Riku fuck me hard!"

"Mmhm, mmhm, mmhm..."

There he was under her, pushing lovingly into her cunt, and it was all so different now, so perfect. Different with him. She whispered his name again and again like a prayer and he joined her, their voices weaving together.

In the space between them they felt it closing in, closing in....

They were closing in. Lumbering around Kairi, their eyes blank, in thirty different stages of infection. Was that Tidus there? Terra? Edea? Selphie didn't want to see their faces anymore. Didn't want to see anyone but Kairi, turning from familiar face to familiar face.

"You've got to snap out of it," Kairi said. Tears were running down her face. _Oh,_ thought Kairi. _I can still cry. How interesting_. "C'mon. Please." They ran hot over her face and she couldn't stop them felt weak, pathetic, useless. _Just like before when Sora was saving the day. Wait for the boys, Sora and Riku, to get home. What a shitty world this is._

Oh. She had their names again. How nice.

The Uplifted were feet away from her when Selphie began tearing them to pieces.

"Turn me over now, turn me--yes!--you can get deeper that way, yes! Oh yes!"

The tentacles had an affinity for violence. Selphie barely commanded them. _Kill everyone but Kairi_ , she thought. They did that. Flecks of blood and muscle rained around her. They didn't belong to anybody, she said to herself. Mobs of enemies. Slice through. Objective: save Kairi. Beat objective, get to next objective.

Tidus's head flew a whole eight meters.

"Fuck, your legs in the air, you slut--"

"--call me that, yeah, you're my whore--"

"--gonna come, gonna come soon, gonna come so soon--"

Weapons interlocked, Roxas and Axel lay on the broken pavement, tired. Wheezing. Axel looked up into the boy's eyes--which wasn't fair, the way he called him a boy--and they were golden and corrupted but they were his eyes, Roxas's eyes.

He looked scared. He looked sad. He looked broken.

Shaking, keyblade and chakrams grinding against one another, Roxas leaned down and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"I know," said Roxas. "I just wish."

"Yeah," said Axel. "Me too."

Selphie flicked the gore off of her tentacles. _Oh, shit. I guess I'm a monster now. Damn._ "Kairi."

Kairi lay in a ball on the ground, shaking. Which was, you know. Fair.

Selphie tried to smile. It must've looked shattered like a Picasso painting. "Wanna get out of here?"

Kairi nodded.

"Take my hand, okay? We'll find somewhere with sunlight."

Kairi took Selphie's hand.

Wakka plunged the lost butcher knife through Selphie's back and into her heart.

She came first, contracting, her hands clutching his tight, sweating, legs high in the air.

Selphie tried to say something to Kairi. Blood came out instead.

Her walls contracted around him and he shoved deep, one more time, the hand that was flicking her clit for extra kick falling to the sheets to clutch wildly as he lost control and just pushed, pushed into her, his seed spilling out, and the warmth...

There were a lot of things that Selphie wanted to say but there was just blood coming out and it wasn't fair.

...the warmth spread out over their interlocked bodies, shivering through them, and they took one another in, eyes and mouth and features and everything, enmeshed body and soul...

"Selphie," said Kairi, and Selphie fell.

Selphie kept trying to talk.

But there was so much blood.

They lay beside one another for a time.

Both couples.

Warm. Liquid. Softly breathing.

Eros.

Thanatos.

* * *

 

"We need to go. Hey. Do you hear me?"

Selphie's body wasn't warm, but it was still comfortable.

"Get up, we need to _go_ , you stupid fucking idiot."

Five more minutes.

"You're gonna die and Sq--Selphie's gonna be pissed because you fucked up the reason she died. You okay with that?"

Maybe she was. Maybe. Together, anyway. Get chewed out by Selphie in hell. Not a bad deal.

The stranger Axel's fingers dug deep into Kairi's shoulder. Bloody flecks of spittle as he screamed: "You're _going to get up_ and we are _going to leave now_ , do you hear me? Now _get up_."

Axel pulled her to her feet. Selphie was still on the pavement. It didn't seem fair. Her eyes weren't closed. So blue.

Axel dragged her away from the unconscious form of Roxas. The earth quaked. Kairi hardly noticed. She was lost in the blue of those eyes. Maybe she could sink in them forever and never wake up. That could be a kind of death. Easier than knives.

Knives.

Selphie.

The hole in the World opened. The earth shook beneath them, had been shaking for hours. Pink harpoons pulled infested hunks of the world into the sky, into a vast floating warship built of stolen flesh and bone.

"C'mon, Kairi," said Axel.

Kairi followed. It was easier than staying.

The portal closed.

The world died.

* * *

 

They lay together for a hundred years or so, nuzzling, warm under Namine's soft sheets. Exhausted. Happy. Kissing, touching, running hands over bodies. At some point Namine, her hands gripping the small of his back, kissing him roughly on the lips, pulled back and found that she was crying.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't--" she seized his lips again, paused, then again "--I don't know. Something's gone really wrong."

"Um." _Did I fuck up? Did I do something wrong?_

"It's got nothing to do with you," said Namine, and his heart lifted. "It's like half of me is happier than I've ever been, and the other half just broke into pieces."

"Do you want me to hold you?"

"Please," said Namine. "I need you."

He held her. In time he slipped away into slumber.

Namine sobbed and sobbed, but she could not join him there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This essentially marks the end of the first volume of _Thanatos._ Again: I didn't think at all that anyone would be this interested in such a weird, dark piece such as this, and I appreciate you taking this journey with me. There will be one more chapter--more like an epilogue for this volume--after this, and then this project's going to be on hold so I can work on other things.
> 
>  
> 
> [I'll be both reblogging pervy stuff on my Tumblr and probably the occasional piece of fic, along with some reviews of H-stuff. Join me there if you're interested.](https://skyler-slapdash.tumblr.com/#_=_)


	8. What Comes Next

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xion knows things now. Riku can't sleep. High school sweethearts make love on prom night. Axel takes Kairi to the castle. The first volume wraps up.

Beast's Castle was no more. The living flesh coated all walls now, devouring the ancient masonry, the priceless art, the faded brass. Xion lay brooding in her chamber near the bottom of the castle, nude, the heartbeat of the living castle running through her body. Computer screen light tinted the red chamber pale pink. The file was still open.

 _Replica Project: i._ it read at the top. _This file is property of Organization XIII. If you do not possess clearance level DTD, please inform your supervisor that this file has been improperly secured_.

Ha. Tell a supervisor. Funny. Good joke.

There was nobody left to tell now.

Xion shuddered. The memories were still so fresh. Maybe they always would be. After ending the Organization in their own castle and stealing all the data she could, she'd talked with Belle for a long time about what happened, and what happens next.

"In answer to your unspoken question, Xion," Belle said as Xion started for her room, "the end of the Organization is no great loss. There are others we can Uplift. Besides, I'm sure it was difficult for you to turn your blade on the people who raised you."

Xion disguised her laughter as sobbing. But the glee was gone now, there in the darkness. Void. She felt void. And she could feel, she knew now from the files. They all could. There were so many secrets that the Organization kept. In time, Xion knew she would be able to decrypt even more. For now, though, she was left with questions:

Her hypothesis was that she was waking from her infection. The fact that she wasn't a Nobody at all, was something entirely artificial--was that why? What did that mean? Even corruption rejected her.

What was that book Belle read all the time? _Der Vermis Mysteriis._ Translated from a dead language in a dead world, _Mysteries of the Worm_. What worm? Was that the infection? Was it something else?

Then there was the matter of...him. The boy, Sora. Xion put her hand on her chest, over that hollow place beneath her left breast. Could he ever come back after all of this? Some part of her wanted him to, felt that he _needed_ to...but then, perhaps it was too late. It was probably too late.

All of these thoughts she went over with the sterile, detached air of a mortician, and in a way they were all the same thought:

What comes next?

* * *

 

Riku felt it too now, and there was no way to tell Namine without waking her up. The dread weighed in his stomach, a knotted black tumor. It was night in Twilight Town, or what passed for night in such a place. In a world of eternal sunset, night was a few shades darker. Nothing like the nights in the islands back home, that black sea mirroring the ocean below, flecked with stars like seafoam.

 _I'm never going to see the islands again._ Riku had thought about that before and always dismissed it, always knew it to be just his anxiety amuck. Of course he'd go home. But then, this wasn't a _thought_. It was something that ached in his heart, something bitter and awful and true.

And when he realized that, staring out the window at the mild un-night of Twilight Town, he felt himself flying down a bottomless slope. _Something's gone wrong._

Even at its worst, Riku had always felt as though there was some guiding tracks that his life and the life of his friends were on. Things would work out for good people and end badly for the bad. Riku wasn't sure which group he belonged to, but the thought still comforted him. The tracks had eroded. The train was flying off the rails and people were--he _knew_ people were, he could _feel_ it--people were dying, or worse than dying.

If he was never going to see the Islands again, why? What did that mean for Kairi? Was she safe?

And Sora. Sora, that knight in shining armor, that hero leading all the good people. Sora, who Riku was supposed to help bring back to save them all...

Oh god, had Riku made a mistake somewhere? Was it too late? And if so...what then?

* * *

 

Roxas's lips tingled still with the phantom of the kiss.

The image of Axel's arms swinging those chakrams in that last lucky hit haunted him. Roxas needed to hate him for all of that. He'd spun out from the blow, smacked into the softening ground, and awakened on the flesh outside of Belle's Castle, and the darkness had carried him home, and he had to _hate_. After reporting to Belle--who was not happy with the loss of the Princess and gave him more than a few lasting welts--he stalked the corridors of the castle, pacing, smashing his fists against the tunnels till the walls bled, trying to work himself into a fury.

Anger. Lust. Bliss. An annihilating pain. Anything but this sensation. Anything at all....

Roxas found Xion laying on the floor of the dungeon. She stared a hole through the ceiling.

Idly, Roxas remembered when their eyes had been blue. Xion's eyes were the color of the deep sea. He sat cross-legged beside her, clothed, staring into those golden eyes.

"Hello to you too," said Xion.

"What are you thinking about?" Roxas tilted his head.

"Hm." Xion sat up, crossed her legs. Roxas's eyes fell on the dark curls between her legs for a moment. Familiar lust stirred. "I can't remember the last time you asked a question like that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He reached, ran his fingers down her cheek. She chuckled.

"It's just been a while. We don't really talk much, now that I think about it. Not anymore."

"We...communicate." A smile flickered at his lips and fell away.

She folded her legs. "Often."

"So what are you thinking about?"

"My mission today."

"How did it go?"

"I don't know," said Xion. She looked away, made a loud coughing noise, wiped her face with her bare arm. "Um." Turned to face him. "I think it went well."

"Did you manage to get anyone from the Organization to join us?"

"No," said Xion.

"Did they run away?"

Xion said nothing.

Roxas swallowed. "Oh."

"I didn't like to do it," said Xion quietly. "I don't know. Your mission?"

"I saw Axel."

Xion leaned forward. "Did he escape?"

"I couldn't Uplift him."

"That's..." Xion sighed. "I'm sorry about that."

"I think maybe I loved him."

"You probably did. I probably did too."

Something unspoken ran through them. A shiver of electricity.

"Roxas," said Xion.

"Mm?"

"Touch me. Slow."

Roxas ran his fingers down her cheek, down her neck. Her breath caught in her throat; she crawled towards him on all fours across the vile ground.

Xion couldn't stop the tears anymore. She kissed him, her eyes spilling hot tears onto his face. He fell back. She gazed down.

"I didn't mean to do it," she said, and kissed him. God, his lips were so soft. "I didn't. It was wrong." Again. "I didn't mean to. Didn't."

"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay." A prayer. "It's okay, Xion, I--"

Deep, as if she needed his body to breathe, as if they were unbreakable. Soft, so soft beneath him, crying hot tears that he couldn't kiss away quickly enough. She slid her fingers down his waistband, a practiced motion; he unbuttoned his shirt, let the black coat fall to the side and sink into the living floor.

Naked, Roxas held himself over her. Had his body always been so warm? What would it have been like, to make love to him when they were human--or at least less inhuman?

"I have an idea," said Xion quietly. The lust was taking her again, building in her core, surging electricity through her skin. His cock brushed deliciously against the lips of her pussy.

"What's the idea?"

"Roleplay. You..." She swallowed. "I'm a, ah, I'm on the volleyball team. You're in track. We never see each other. It's night now. We just went to one of those, uh, those dances that people go to. You know. What do they call them?"

"Prom." He prodded her clit; her legs stiffened. "Homecoming?"

"Mmm--ah! Yeah. One of those."

"We sneak out into the gym. It's dark, but...."

* * *

 

....but the full moon shines through the windows, white shafts of light. They know that the third door on the left is unlocked--actually, no, it's broken--and they've made use of the gym before. Skipping lunch to spend time with one another, clutching and kissing in the changing rooms. Always wanting to do more, always afraid. Not tonight.

She knows he has a reputation, but knows that it's horseshit. He has to unroll a second condom to get it right. It's so cute that she just has to go down on him when he tears open the second one. He drops it to the gym floor, sits back on the bleachers, puts his hand on her head. Moans her name again and again. None of it is like the pornos.

The girl strokes his muscular legs greedily as she sucks, needing to feel him, all of him. So strong and yet so graceful on the track like the deer that she'd seen on her grandfather's farm

 _(now that was a truly sweet dream to have family not like the Organization to have real family_ )

thick and graceful, and Xion pretends to be the girl and pretends that the taste of Roxas's precum is unfamiliar. This is a magical night for the both of them. He's rocking his hips now and she's taking it, she's practiced for tonight _(good enough worldbuilding, Xion, good enough for this_ ) and he lets out a little grunt before he cums. She doesn't have time to prepare, but she likes that. Likes how suddenly he lost control and shot his load in her mouth. Some kind of power in that.

Of course it's not over. She swallows, looking into his eyes (squinting, sweating from the orgasm) and smiles. Pops the cock out of her mouth. Her pussy is on fire and she lays down between the bleachers on the concrete. Hard concrete, and something else's hard too, curving up and gleaming with lube. A ridiculous purple condom but god damn does that shape make up for it, just seeing him standing up (standing up in so many ways) is enough to make her want to plunge her fingers into her pussy.

She waits, not wanting to finger herself and look like a slut, knowing that only idiots care about looking like a slut, but my god does one's brain get filled up with garbage even if you know it. She raises her legs, little lights on a landing strip, and smirks. He pushes in slowly--she can feel every bump, can feel the curve of him stroking up against her wall. He pauses, looks to her. She grunts, smiles.

Nods at him.

Faster now, up and down, and she can't stop herself now from frigging her clit. Doesn't care if he sees because he's _him_ and he doesn't give a shit. In fact it seems to turn him on: he laughs, shoves deeper. Her legs are high over his shoulders now, poking out from behind the bleachers. Little shark fins jutting from the ocean in an old movie, waving back and forth with every thrust. He's going harder now but not hard enough. She begs him for more.

He gives her more. The feeling of being fucked, being pinned to the ground by those arms and that cock, being filled to the brim is overwhelming. She comes while lost in the curve of his open mouth and doesn't let him know, afraid that he'll stop. Can't stop. "Harder, deeper, harder, faster," these words tumble out and they're all the same thing.

The scent of his deodorant, sweat, his shampoo. Her juices are spilling out onto the concrete between the bleachers, and her own sweat, and oh, this is what they mean when the books talk about the smell of sex. She wants them both to be marked by it, the scent of this moment, this fuck because oh god here it is again just as raw, just as powerful as before. Her legs fall by themselves to either side, bruise against the bleachers to receive him deep, deep enough to hurt like heaven.

"Come in me, come in me, come in me--"

"Mmhm, mmhm--"

His cock is so warm suddenly, twitching. Her pussy grips at it, pushes against the condom. For a marvelous, psychotic moment she wants her body to rip it in half and take his cum till it pools around her but she hasn't been able to get a hold of the pill yet but god, she wants it, her legs slap against the bleachers and she wants it....

They lie there for a moment, still horny, feeling ridiculous. In a gym. Really? But...

* * *

 

"...wasn't that nice? Don't you feel better?"

Intertwined they lay on the floor, nuzzling, warm.

Roxas nodded. "Mmhm."

"We should do it again like that."

"Yeah," he said. "A knight in a princess, maybe. Or an alien."

"Not like that." Xion shook her head. "We could pretend to be them. We could...we could make something up."

Roxas pulled away. Looked at her oddly. "That sounds like it'd get boring."

Xion's breath caught in her throat. "Oh."

"What?"

"I guess you're right," she said. "Do you want to stay for a while longer?"

"I do."

He crawled up to her to the side; Xion pulled him tight. Her chest heaved against his, deep, then suddenly sharp, then deep.

"Hey, Xion," said Roxas.

"Mm."

"What are we?" whispered Roxas.

Two of the last survivors of Organization XIII lay on the floor of a world's corpse, one nude and one clothed, both trying very hard not to cry.

* * *

 

"You'd be in a better mood if you said something."

Axel led Kairi through the Corridor. It was vaguely like pulling a mannequin on wheels--limp-handed, embarrassing, prone to somebody or the other falling over. It's very hard to fall over in an eldritch place between places while maintaining your dignity, too, so it was almost fortunate that this Kairi or whatever was basically catatonic.

Was that what it was? Axel was no doctor. Close enough, anyway.

She was utterly useless. That was the point of it.

But if she was so useless, why was he bothering to drag her around?

"You know," Axel continued, "I always feel better when I'm talking. You can probably tell, eh?"

"Yes, Axel!" Axel answered himself in a high-pitched voice. "Because I have a heart, I can feel emotion! And I feel way better! Let's talk about boys!"

Nothing, obviously. Why _had_ he brought her around? Maybe he was used to dragging around dead weight. They'd saddled him with Roxas and Xion after all. Maybe now he _needed_ somebody helpless to save from impending doom. (He wiped his lips as he thought this, not entirely aware of his hand.)

Perhaps it was about Roxas and Xion, now that he thought of it. Roxas seemed to want this girl. Maybe taking her could lure him back to the Organization. Using this Kairi as bait wasn't a bad idea at all. Naturally, this all depended on the Organization not having Roxas and Xion executed the moment they got back, but what were the odds of that?

"We're almost here," said Axel. The corridor ended up ahead, dissolving into a mass of darkness with a single sickly-green oval portal at the end. "We're going to get to a safe place." _For me_. "So just...try not to trip over anything when we walk through the portal."

"Alright," said Kairi. Ah. There we go. Progress.

"You can talk after all," said Axel. _Deja vu._ "Alright, chatterbox. Let's get going."

They stepped through into the World That Never Was...

...and the world Wasn't.

A ledge jutted out here over the waste that had been the home of the Organization. Kairi sat down, her legs swinging over the nothingness like a child sitting on a wall.

Fragments of city floated on the air--concrete, walls, cars, everything the Organization had created to feel surrounded by life. It danced in the air with shards of castle, shreds of machinery, one or two fragments of Organization XIII graves. Familiar fleshy growths clung to the debris. From on high, violet harpoons on violet lines launched into the pieces of shattered world. The pieces quivered like slime and whisked out of sight.

"I don't understand," said Axel.

Kairi nodded. Patted the ground beside her.

Numbly, Axel sat beside the girl and watched every infected piece of his last and only home fly away into the dark.

Just the two of them on the ledge now.

Kairi took a long, deep breath. Turned to Axel.

"So, Axel," she said, voice quivering, wearing a manic smile. "What comes next?"

END VOLUME ONE

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note:
> 
> I'd like to thank some people.
> 
> Firstly, I want to thank Headcannon-Central on Tumblr for directly reaching out to me and generally just being cool in general. I'd also like to thank other folks on the sites this was posted on who either left comments or (on Ao3) Kudos:
> 
> HyrulesPimp (you were early, so I hope you're still onboard!)
> 
> Toggle1 (no joke, your fanfics actually convinced me to give this a shot.)
> 
> Abridged (yes, a lot of thought and effort did go into this, and you also have a Garrus avvy. you kick ass.)
> 
> UnseenDoor77 (thanks for pointing out that my fic was broken because god knows, I would've never noticed because I'm dumb)
> 
> Shink (you actually influenced where the story went, because I didn't have a set plan with Riku and Namine till you commented that)
> 
> NotSoMighty (aaaaaa thanks!!!)
> 
> Lostnova00, Dj_Ethan, TLGOD97.
> 
> If this list doesn't include you, it's obviously because I don't know who you are. Still, I'm very glad you're here. I hope this fanfiction has made your life more interesting and/or given you some deeply awkward orgasms.
> 
> Finally: as I'm sure is obvious by now, this story is not over. Two more volumes.
> 
> All things come to those who wait.


	9. Alice's Last Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Volume 2 begins. Alice regrets a missed connection. A young gentleman and his lady provide Alice with a rather long entertainment. Kairi wakes up and regrets it immediately.

"Something kept me standing by that hospital bed

I should have quit, but instead

I took care of you.

You made me sleep and uneven

and I didn't believe them

when you told me that there was no

saving you."

[\--"Kettering," The Antlers. From _Hospice_.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3ImEzr-Fkg)

~

Wonderland was, after a decade or so, woefully predictable chaos. The girl Alice knew this perhaps better than anyone. Falling down rabbit holes and mirrors into madness were novel for a time, she had to admit. But every visit found her a few years older and the world of Wonderland in the exact same state. The same cast and crew and scenery lined up for another show. A different script, perhaps, but nothing too daring.

Nothing save for that one night, years ago (but how many?), when the boy came from the sky to save her from shadows. All a distant memory, blurred like watercolors under rainwater, and yet both the boy's smile and the stench of the shadows remained untouched by the fall of countless years.

Save that one night and tonight.

Alice found herself in that old blue and white dress, its colors so bright that she might've bought it yesterday--a far cry from the dress in reality, moldering untouched in her cousin's closet for four years as a hand-me-down. Alice was in the mad forest again, with its strange stiff branches and shoots resembling her mother's pop-up books more than reality. She brushed her hair back--it was long in her dreams--and smelled the air of Wonderland.

It always smelled different, no matter what else stayed the same. Sometimes it smelled like candy, sometimes like flowers. Tea occasionally, and very rarely the scent of a fairground pony.

Today it smelled of sweat.

No, not just sweat. It smelled of...

_His name was Colin, he was impossibly sweet, and Alice had known from the start exactly what he was after._

_Alice was, after all, a thoroughly modern girl. Like most thoroughly modern girls, she read widely. Wider than most women her age, actually. The Bronte sisters were old ragged friends on Alice's shelves, yes, but so were Miss Mary Shelley and her monster. All of those more proper books can get you an education, can show you wonders and horrors, but it can't show you everything. For this purpose, Alice kept a special collection of magazines under her bed, all issues of_ The Pearl, _and they were every one of them well-loved._

_Colin was undoubtedly the sort of man who prided himself on stealing young virginal women from under their father's noses for a good ravishing, perhaps with a few quips, undoubtedly with turgid purple prose about maidenheads and "purple gladiators" and other nonsense. He was, in short, the sort of paper-thin protagonist that the stories in_ The Pearl _creamed over. Still, Colin was helpful around her father's bookstore despite not reading, and his skin was tanned from the sun, and his hair was long and dark red like withered roses._

_Alice took precautions. She was ready to defend herself. She knew a rainbow of abortifacients. None of them proved necessary._

_Colin was a perfect gentleman, in a fucky sort of way...._

...and he had smelled of sweat peeking out from under oceans of cologne, as overwhelming and overcompensating as he'd been on the second fuck, the ice broken, both still uncomfortable and trying to prove something. Wonderland smelled like Colin now, that long-gone boy who had bent her over her father's desk and asked permission to pull her hair, of all things, and then when she said yes had the mad audacity to do it, and _she_ must have been bitten by that same strange bug that made it marvelous when he pulled and shoved his cock deep with every pull, these two perfect synchronized and welcome violations, this industrial fucking that never seemed to end.

Alice took a deep breath of the air and wiped her eyes. Never seemed to end until it did.

He was just gone one day. There was never a reason for it. Nothing in his countenance that suggested (as the two lay skin-to-skin and on-the-nose among the romance novels) that he might leave her, that he was disgusted, that he had found something else. He was just gone.

And that was it.

That was Colin.

The chapter was over.

But the smell of Wonderland, it dug into her--no, it pierced her like some perfect bullet from the American Civil War, that industrialized nightmare she'd been reading about so much recently. The bullet dug through her skin, through her muscles, into her bones just to set them shaking.

She didn't miss Colin. No, she didn't miss him at all. Never.

She missed the _feeling_. And now, here in Wonderland, awash in his scent, she found herself missing so many things. A Queen of Hearts was less fearsome than a pregnancy scare. A Mad Hatter was sweeter than a boy that fell asleep wordlessly after oozing into you, on top of you, crying out your name beforehand and making you feel like it was about you, you desperate beneath him, dragging your fingers over his spine...and then not bothering to wake you in the morning before he left.

A Card Soldier had more humanity than a boy that left you in a pool of sweat to clean up before father caught you with your maidenhead snatched.

Wonderland was, to Alice at that moment, promise. It was Colin without Colin, innocence without the weight of the future. In the mad forest she found her carefully constructed composure to already be half-crumbled. She tore down the rest of it with a burst of giggles. Her body tingled with need and the air filled with laughter and this dream would be beautiful, she already _knew_ that this dream would be beautiful, for how could it not be?

"I can't believe you fucked a rabbit person."

Alice looked around. She couldn't tell where the voice was coming from. Moreover, she didn't _know_ the voice. And she knew every voice here in Wonderland. It was a girl speaking. Now, a boy:

"You're one to talk. You've fucked duck people! And mice!"

"That was different, Roxas."

"Explain how, please?"

"I was experimenting! Plus, they had an aesthetic appeal to them."

"The husband and wife mouse and the duck lady that you _bodily_ uplifted."

"Yes. It's the bills. Very smoochable."

"Okay. Just want to make sure we're on the same page there, Xion."

"The rabbit was slapping his watch against your back as he fucked you up the ass, Roxas. You are out of higher ground. It's gone. That rabbit fucked it clean out of you."

Well, then. Wonderland was clearly different this time around. _Very_ different. If Colin was somehow to blame, Alice wondered if she should be thanking him. The idea of wandering into a marvelous otherworld that consisted purely of fucking was pretty damn appealing, even if the White Rabbit was somehow involved.

Something to send to the letters pages of _The Pearl_ , Alice supposed.

The boy: "How long till we find the Princess of this world, do you think?"

The girl: "Are you calling dibs?"

The boy: "Nah. Uh. Maybe. If I'm not, how long?"

The girl: "It doesn't matter either way. None of this matters."

The boy: "As long as we get the job done for Belle?"

The girl just said "No, Roxas."

The scent of Colin in her nose, her bones tingling, some strange unexplained power working within her, Alice called out to the two of them: "You don't have to get the job done for her; you could get it done for me!"

And, to Alice's surprise, there was silence.

"That's a nice change of pace," said the girl after a time.

"This is Wonderland, right? Isn't everything supposed to be topsy-turvey?" the boy remarked.

"I suppose. I just didn't think it'd translate to some girl volunteering herself right to us." She paused. "Do you want to take bets on it being a Princess of Heart?"

"Do you really think it would be so stupid?"

"Yes," said Xion. "Most of them seem to be."

"Alright. I'm betting it's not one of them."

Xion snorted. "Good. Because I already know."

And as the girl, Xion, spoke, Alice felt gentle fingers wrap around her shoulders and squeeze. Xion dug in and the feeling burned before the sensation turned to a slow spread of relaxation through her flesh. It was all a fantasy, all a vision brought on by Colin, and so what if the face looking down at Alice was different from his? Yes, the girl's face was chalk-white and the bags under her eyes were deep, almost deep as a bruise.

Colin's blue eyes were as deep as those bags. The fantasy made sense.

That is, it made sense until the girl Xion pressed her lips against Alice's.

They were hot. They were soft. They were endlessly hungry. Alice fell into Xion's lips and Colin was left behind on the edge, a plastic boy with a melted smile and a thick cock....

* * *

 

Things were going beautifully. Roxas knew this because Belle told him, and Belle was essentially right about everything. Anything that Belle appeared to be wrong about was either a cleverly planted operation from her enemies or one of those prophecy twists, a "no man of woman born" deal where it was actually correct but everyone was too dumb to understand _how_ it was correct until it was too late.

Things were going beautifully, though. Roxas knew this, despite the growing gulf between himself and Xion. Or rather, the illusion of a growing gulf, for Belle wouldn't allow such a thing to happen. When Xion turned away and huffed, there were other reasons for it. Allergies, perhaps? When Xion let out a particularly vicious snark, Roxas knew that it was just his own mind jumping to the cruelest response. And fittingly, too, for Belle told him that he was a cruel person.

At which point Belle would punish him. Roxas enjoyed that part until it was over and he was cold and there was no one who wanted to hold him.

But nothing was going wrong. If Xion seemed more distant with every week, it was imagination and misunderstanding. If she ever seemed to be crying when he walked in on her in the depths of the castle, it was a trick of the light. No one could cry if they were so, so happy. And they were happy, all of them. Why, it would be an absurdity if they weren't happy. It would be pathetic. It would mean that they were fighting not for happiness for all life everywhere, but a desperate misery, an eternal hunger.

They weren't.

Of course they weren't.

_They weren't._

Things were going beautifully, at any rate, and the two Keyblade wielders were digging Princess after Princess from their little hidey-holes. It was shocking how easy they fell. Belle insisted (and she should know, she insisted, being a Princess herself) that they _wanted_ to fall, that their false heaven was abomination and that they all knew it in the darkest crevices of their hearts.

None of their hearts, though, would fall to darkness. This was right, Belle insisted, for the Liberation drew upon the idea of darkness more than darkness itself. In time they would welcome the Uplifting maggots into their hearts and become like her. And one by one they would surrender their essences to open the door to Kingdom Hearts, and the light would pour out to welcome every soul to perfect and eternal pleasure.

So you see, now, that things were--despite all of the hiccups one might anticipate, despite all criticisms--that things were going beautifully for these two diseased teenagers, Roxas and Xion, scouring world after world for prey, hordes of Uplifted abominations in their wake.

Except, of course, for the ones that got away. Roxas bit his lip at the thought, spilling black blood. Axel and the last missing Princess, and--so rumors said--a few others. He didn't want to think about them, didn't want to think about Axel at all. A phantom pain gripped the place where his heart was supposed to be. Imagined anguish, a dream of longing.

Roxas focused on the physical. Xion crouched over the prone form of the Princess of Heart, kissing her lips, let her fingers glide over her form....

* * *

 

Xion knew that the princess was hers when she touched the girl's breasts. Even touching through her clothing was enough to send the girl spiraling. The princess's breath quickened, her lips quivered, she squirmed on the ground of Wonderland in her grass-stained blue dress. Xion laughed softly, felt for her nipple, found it hard through the fabric. She gave it a short, sharp squeeze.

The girl squeaked delightfully. Xion grinned, gave her breast a longer, deeper squeeze--and now the princess was panting, wide-eyed on the ground. Putty to play with.

"What's your name?" Xion whispered into her ear, lips on skin.

"Alice, hello, nice to ahh--"

"Alice," said Xion, liking the taste of the name.

"You're a girl," said Alice-hello-nice-to-ahh.

"Oh, am I?"

Alice nodded vigorously. Xion gave her nip a vicious four-fingered tease. "Ow!"

"I am," said Xion. "Good catch. I'm a girl and you like this. Is this," she paused, raised her fingers teasingly to her eyes, "is this what you like?"

"No. I mean. I didn't think so. I. Ah. Ahh. Would you...would it be alright if you...could you....?"

Xion sat over Alice now, her black cloak pooling on both sides of Alice's prone form, the tight leather of Xion's pants against the soft fabric of Alice's dress. "Could I what?"

Alice tugged at the fabric of her blouse helplessly.

"I need you to say it," said Xion sweetly. She glanced back at Roxas. He was giving Xion the pleasure of warming Alice up. Good on him. Patience is a virtue, whatever that meant.

"Pleasetakeoffmyblouse."

"It'll never come back on," Xion warned.

"That's fine please please please--"

Xion leaned over Alice, the leather of her cloak sliding, and brought her lips to Alice's cheek. Her lips were dark without lipstick. They tingled as she spoke against Alice's skin: "I mean what I say, Alice. We're monsters, you see. We will take you. We'll take you forever. You don't know what you're asking."

"It's a fantasy, it's nothing but a fantasy, please take me," said Alice.

She didn't understand. None of them understood. But Xion could feel something dark and hungry stirring inside. Alice turned her head, looking out into space, smiling, trembling. A deliciously treat unwrapped.

"Then you're mine," said Xion. She pushed her lips against those of Alice and tasted her, tasted deep. Alice tasted like cupcake icing and cherries. Xion's fingers glided circles around her breasts before pinching the fabric and--in half a second--shredding the blouse into pieces. Alice gasped into Xion's mouth and Xion kissed it away, swallowed it whole. Her black-gloved hands roughly kneaded Alice's bare skin, flicked her nipples, pinched. Xion broke away from Alice's mouth to give her breast a suck, all the while flicking its companion just lightly enough to drive the poor girl mad as a hatter.

"Yes, yes, please, more!"

"More?" Xion pulled back. The thing inside of her stirred again, stronger this time. "Alice, you look so innocent, but you can't fool me. I can hear it in your voice. I can see it in your eyes. I can smell it on your clothes, and in the sweet clinging places beneath them. You've been fucked, haven't you?"

Alice blinked up at her. "Is that a...is that a problem?" Spoken like a true Victorian girl. "Do you want me?"

Xion debated teasing her. It would be so easy, so repressed she was. She decided against it.

"I want you." Xion pulled the hood over her face. Made things easier. Her eyes gleamed like oceans past midnight. "Wanna fuck you. Wanna rip you from your home to faraway places, heavenward and silent. So will Roxas over there, my friend. Faraway and forever."

"Roxas," Alice repeated. "Please. I...I want it. You really don't mind?" she added suddenly.

"No," said Xion. The tentacles crept from her body hungrily, still hidden by the bottom of her cloak. _Not yet_ , she thought. _Soon._

"His name is Roxas, and I'm Alice. What's your name?"

Xion winced. "You don't need to know that."

"It's only fair."

"The name that they gave me was Xion," she said. "It's a lie. It doesn't matter. You don't need to know it."

"Thank you anyway," Alice whispered.

_Please stop,_ Xion wanted to say, but she couldn't. Or no, she could. She had more control over herself than Roxas, she always _could_. Instead she said: "You're all too welcome, Alice. Now, then: answer me. Would you like us to take you, forever and ever? Take you deep? Take you long and hard? Suck your plump and succulent fruit till your everything begs?"

And this girl, this Alice, her gaze ran from the golden eyes of Xion down to her breasts, tight against the faux leather of her black cloak, and up to the amber eyes of Roxas and then again down to his slim waist, the way his crotch strained against the zipper of his own cloak...

What was she thinking about, Xion wondered? Was it more or less than their own bodies as they looked down at the surrendering princess, this girl whose hands fell so thoughtlessly to her own pussy--this girl who lay watching them loom over her, moaning and laughing, their names drifting out from her lips alongside the name of someone else, some "Colin." In the bright, clear gaze of Alice, Xion's own eyes saw no answers to this question. Just...

Trust.

Xion stole a kiss from her delicious lips.

The air delivered a little of the Uplifted's toxin. The kiss delivered...well. More.

Much, much more.

Alice's eyes widened. She touched herself furiously, flicking her clit as if possessed, jamming her index and middle finger into her gushing pussy. Xion stood over her with a grim smile on her face.

The skirt of Xion's robes parted. Her own pussy gushed too with juices and a darker fluid. Two slick black tentacles poked out from inside, twitched, slid out from between her legs, down past her white knees. Alice stared. Mute horror fought a losing battle against a lunatic's lust. The tide turned when the first orgasm came, and so quickly. Alice's legs rose high, spread, and her chest heaved. She squirted a long, thin stream into the air--hadn't before, never until now, not even with Colin, but the mad dream was too much not to come like this.

Still wasn't enough, couldn't be enough, needed something more than fingers. Needed the girl walking slowly towards her, those slick black tentacles rubbing and shuddering against one another.

Flashes of pleasure crossed Xion's face. Whenever the tentacles came out, and wherever they came from, they were too much. It was enough to make her lose herself a little, become as much of a slave to pleasure as poor Roxas. She wondered vaguely if this was what it was like to have a penis, these stiff things with minds of their own, driving her mad with pleasure when they rubbed together. Was it this bothersome for those boys and their dicks? Probably not; Roxas would've just given up on his cock if that was the case.

He definitely had not given up on that cock. Xion would strangle him if he did that to her.

"I'll fuck you," Xion growled, the tentacles sliding over one another. She focused on that gushing pussy of Alice's. Not the face, never the face. It was better this way. "Slip these inside you. That'll be my first taste. Then Roxas, he'll join in. Can you even hear me anymore? I bet you can't."

"I..." Alice panted "...I can hear you. Colin."

"You can't hear me," said Xion. The two tentacles ran up her shins, up to her thighs. They caressed Alice for a moment, teasing her. Xion found an animal pleasure in that teasing. Dominance. "Too much toxin. Stop lying."

"But I can," Alice said, "I c--"

Xion slipped them both in at once. Alice cried out. Xion spread them. A third tentacle awakened inside of her, teased Xion's clit experimentally, snaked across the ground towards the other two. It rose, sniffed at Alice's pussy, began to rub against her clit. Xion moved slowly at first, memorizing the sounds of her moans. She'd touch herself later that night to that memory, perhaps remember them when with Roxas or when Belle called her to submit for one of her regular "recreational inspections." It added to the pleasure of the former, subtracted from the humiliation of the latter.

Alice writhed at Xion's feet, coming and crying out and whispering nonsense. Xion calmly touched herself. Beside her, Roxas came. It was cute, the familiar way his dick twitched, and all while looking at somebody else. Flattering, somehow.

Xion looked at herself through smoky glass and wanted to look away. But she couldn't. She could only watch herself crouch over Xion and, still fucking her with those dark tentacles, kiss her and gush toxins, knowing that Alice was already lost and not caring, wanting to put all of herself deep inside. Xion imagined this other self, this good self, watching it all happen and screaming.

Alice shuddered and drooled on the ground of Wonderland. Xion's robes were unbuttoned now, revealing her bare chest. Alice heaved her own chest up and down, grinding, breasts sweating. Xion surrendered to that sensation of skin on skin, found herself growling and moaning into Alice's mouth, her pussy dripping. This was it, this was what she longed for:

Forgetting inside bodies.

Her tentacles ground together, one pulling out as the other pushed in. Alice jabbered beneath her. When the jabbering became too much, Xion gave her clit more attention and turned Alice into jelly. Not that there was too much of a plan now, or too much of Xion to make one at all. She was all body, smelling the perfume of Alice (blueberry?) mixed with sweat, feeling the muscles of the girl (strong, taut, much more than the other princesses), rejoicing in the warmth of her inside and out.

And then, in time, even that fled.

Xion fucked Alice desperately. pussy dripping, tentacles grinding. She bit the soft spot on Alice's neck, the place that drove women mad, and Alice gave her only a small gasp. Nothing enough. Never enough. She bit again, fucked harder--Xion's back arched with effort, her abdomen shifted with tentacles--and it wasn't enough still, even when the pleasure crept up through her belly and chest and neck and exploded out snaking down through the tentacles, between Alice's thighs and into her pussy, bursting parasites into her that would fail to fully infect. The blessing and curse that was being this pure and innocent young lady, this Princess of Heart.

Then again, the spread of infection--or oh, Xion caught herself--the spread of "being Uplifted" didn't matter to Xion. That was all that Belle cared about. Xion, she...well, obviously, what she cared about was...

There was something, of course.

Again and again, Xion thrust and cried out and sweated and came, and there was no satisfaction.

It was getting harder, wasn't it?

Xion erupted into Alice again, spilling dark ichor onto the ground of the dying world. And it was dying now; the Harpooners were beginning to slice Wonderland to pieces and seize it into the sky for materials. Those materials would be used by Belle for whatever mad plan she had in store. As she came again Xion watched one Harpooner seize a freshly sliced cube of planet and pull it into the heavens, and she collapsed over limp Alice, the tentacles the only thing moving out of the two of them outside of the feeble twitch of Alice's legs, firing off one more shot into her.

Wacky unrelated story:

The piece of world that was stolen as Xion came was actually the home of one Mad Hatter, a person who had lived in this very world before being fucked to death and devoured for nutrients by nameless and plot-irrelevant Uplifted. The Mad Hatter--who was still alive and not digested by eldritch horrors at this point--had devoted a great deal of time into creating works of beautiful headgear for the people of Wonderland.

Wonderland was (and I'm sure that this is unsurprising to you, given the name "Wonderland") quite the place, and it was a very difficult place to stand out in. Everything stood out, you see, and everything was a bit of a wonder. The Mad Hatter would watch the crowds gathered at his home (which was also his place of business) and study their heads through his second story window, with all of them lined up for the opening in the morning. He would go through the emotions he felt as he looked at the top of their heads, taking notes. Then he would greet the first person there and sell them the hat that he knew they wanted, for he often knew the sort that would wait line up beside his door before it opened.

The Mad Hatter was a believer in headgear above all other things. The skin had tattoos. For the rest of the body, the people needed clothing. Hats, to be specific. The Hatter knew that he was the last line of defense for the head against the hordes of disorder and unfashionability. He would defend them with his very life if necessary.

Anyway, the home of the Mad Hatter was sucked up by the Harpooners and both it and the hats within were transmuted into building materials for greater purposes.

Those pieces of the world were seized and Xion came inside of Alice and Alice came and for a moment they lay together shuddering, Xion joyful and unsatisfied, Alice happy and shattered. Then, from behind Xion, Roxas.

The stem of his cock rubbed against her back, charming in its familiarity, long and thick in all the right places. The knob of it caught on her ass cheeks. She gave her booty a little shake, smiled to herself when Roxas moaned at something so small.

"Do you want something?" she cooed.

"Maybe," he said, and had the audacity to keep grinding his cock up and down her ass cheeks. She squeezed, glanced down to Alice. Alice giggled.

"More," said Alice.

"She wants more," said Roxas, thrusting his cock all slow between her cheeks.

"I'll give it to her," said Xion, "and you'll give it to me."

Roxas beamed. (It used to be so unlike him to smile so often, but--no, she didn't want to think about that. Thinking about that always hurt.) His cock was soaked, slick with precum. Xion spread her ass, prepared herself.

"Fuck this out of me," she muttered.

Roxas blinked. "What?"

"Fuck me," she said. _Help me get away from myself_. Her tentacles twitched to life beside Alice's prone form on the ground. And Alice...

Alice blinked blearily at the world around her. Everything blurred. Her body ached deliciously and, miraculously, it wasn't enough. If it was a dream, though, it would be ending soon. She'd been dreaming for so much longer than usual, or so it felt like. Maybe one more round and she would wake up safe at home, warm, full of new ideas. Being ravaged by a beautiful girl wasn't something that had ever occurred to her, not in her wildest dreams--

\--okay, in just a _couple_ of her wildest dreams--

\--and maybe this was a way to be too. Maybe she could be happy with that. Maybe the whole world was full of more people outside of Colin, who was boring anyway, and she could love as many as she wanted until she found the right one. And that would be that, then. Maybe. Unless they came to an agreement.

And so on.

The tendrils of the girl Xion snaked towards Alice's pussy. Behind her Roxas sunk three fingers deep into her tight asshole, rubbing her deep down with the juices from his cock, in and out. It crossed the line from hurt to sweet hurt. Xion hummed with pleasure; her tendrils played with Alice's outer lips, the third swiftly circling her clit, sending Alice rocketing down the hill of a small orgasm just for fun.

Xion wanted to have a rhythm. She waited for Roxas to pull his slick fingers out--gasped--and he shoved the pink knob of his cock into her entrance. The tendrils got to work. One thrust inside of Alice's warm, hot walls, while the other tickled her clit to madness. The third thrust into Alice's ass, and--Xion grunted with effort--a fourth burst from her, flew into Alice's mouth. All in the span of seconds.

Alice sucked on the tendril, tasted its sweetnes with the faint aftertaste of sweat. Luxuriated in being fucked in every way she could imagine. It was monstrous, demon-spun, diabolical, perfect. She felt needed. Seized. Violated.

They were a three-piece machine in that dying world:

First, the girl Alice, naive and hopeful, railed in every possible way by things she didn't understand. She drooled, sucked sweetness from the tendril. Her pussy gushed in response, double-filled and pushed outward deliciously, dripping warm otherworldly cum that never satisfied. She came again; the tendrils pulsed inside, the muscles in her legs pulled, she felt her pussy contract down on those tentacles, squeezing every spurt. That beautiful girl, the girl calling herself Xion, Alice knew that it was her coming inside of her on all sides because her mouth was filling with sweetness, because her ass was being violated with hot something, because Xion clutched her chest as she came, her nails digging in, a couple piercing her skin to spill blood.

But it was okay.

Second, the Nobody Roxas shoved his hard cock into Xion's tight ass cheeks. He was ready, burning to go, had been ready to go for hours and hours, was _always_ ready, as a matter of fact, to the point where readiness had no real meaning anymore. Hills of thrusting, valleys of orgasm, and shouting from the valleys to the hills was some horrible, heretical possibility of change. But why? Why, when the sensation of his cock between her thick ass was so exquisite? When the way she moaned his name to thrust harder--and then told the princess beneath them that she was in for a cruel, hard fuck--when all of that was a kind of heaven? It was not something that Roxas chose to think about.

Most of the time.

Third, the Replica Xion panted and penetrated and, behind, was pounded. The sensations inside rose high and collapsed and rose again. She exalted the highs, became a queen with two subjects serving her, obeying her, loyal and desperate to please. And oh, how they pleased; Roxas's hands slapped against her back and she knew he was coming before his cock twitched, before his seed spilled into her as he rocked hips. Shaken, horny, she felt the pleasure of it run through her ass into her tendrils, contracting, forming her own come to gush into this other subject--this girl Alice, loyally embraced by the three arms of her mistress, moaning with a tentacle muffling her small mouth, eyes blank with all the pleasures of hell.

And it was--Xion's come trickled out of Alice and she watched the girl's mouth hang open, watched her gaze up with trust and love, and Xion fought the urge to roll off and throw her away, to save her--and it was--

\--and if it wasn't okay, then, why....

Xion would be a bit of a monster, wouldn't she?

The Replica Xion came and the world came around her. Her tendrils twitched and pulsed in that dying world, gleaming with the non-light of a world consumed. Her mouth opened; she cried out, her tendrils poured into the girl one more time, one more load into the tight sweetness of her pussy, and--and another, actually, because Roxas's hard and red-with-fucking cock was thrusting between her ass cheeks and she needed to pass it along--and Xion did, she felt him burst in her ass, felt the warm currents of pleasure carry her away from herself just as her tendrils fired again into Alice--

\--into ruined Alice, her dress torn and soaked, the girl begging for more and more and more forever, for she would surely awaken and find all of this a terrible dream or, at worst, a bad fanfiction, and escape to reality--

\--and Xion, yes, she violated Alice totally and her infected tentacle come finally finished, over the next several days, the little chemicals altering the switches in Alice's brain that convinced her that there was anything outside of fucking.

Alice sprawled on the floor of Wonderland--that is, what remained of Wonderland. She twitched and whispered.

Alice was talking to someone named Colin.

Roxas coordinated the harpoons to seize the last piece of the world. Xion's job was to prepare the princess for transport to Belle's castle.

Smiling at prone Alice, Xion wondered how to do that.

"How are you feeling?" Xion tried, her tendrils at rest again inside her abdomen, smiling wide and innocent like a child's doll.

Alice burbled. Reached out at the sky. Glanced at Xion, ran hands over her body.

Cried out.

Giggled.

And all of this repeated.

Repeated for hours.

And hours.

Everything was absolutely fine with Xion, though, because Xion was on a mission. She knew what she was in for. And as Roxas directed the last chunks of the world to sail away and be consumed, Xion knew that she wasn't a monster, couldn't be a monster, because she secretly hated all of this, always had, was a good person at heart.

If she had a heart. Being from the Organization, one rarely knew.

Alice shouted for Xion to help her as Roxas shut the girl into the pod. One of the harpoons snatched it along with the rest of the world, to go wherever Belle was taking all of the Princesses of Heart.

Xion looked at the empty sky. There were so much fewer stars these days. She stood on the last patch of Wonderland, breathing the rotten-candy scent of a freshly dead world.

Wordlessly, Roxas and Xion entered the Corridors of Darkness.

Wasn't much to say these days.

* * *

 

There was no dramatic moment where Kairi woke up and thought that it had all been a nightmare. No cold sweats, opening her eyes, finding herself somewhere far from home. But she _wanted_ there to be, damn it. Because then there would've been a golden moment between that nightmare and reality where she thought that everything was alright again.

In the moment she'd wanted, Kairi squeezed her pillow over her head to try and keep the wide-awake world from getting in. Especially school. Man, she (or this hypothetical Kairi) was so done with school. Selphie'd been the only thing worth going to school over anyway, and she never showed up anymore. Maybe it was the party, maybe...

Kairi couldn't keep it going anymore.

She opened her eyes.

Stark white walls. Stark white ceiling. Stark white floor. Oww. Stung to look at.

She closed her eyes. The dark outline of a guy in a black cloak sitting by the wall lingered.

"I didn't think you were ever gonna wake up."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

“This sucks.”

A great, old beast of an air conditioner hummed somewhere.

"Hey," said the guy in black.

"Mm."

"Now, I don't want to intrude on your beauty sleep or, uh, your death wish. Whatever's going on here. I respect it either way. None of my business. Just one question, real fast."

Kairi tried for sleep. She tried as hard as she could. Maybe she'd manage that fake-out wake-up thing this time. "Shoot."

"You know some guy named..." he paused "...Riku?"

Well. No going back to sleep after _that_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I should come clean about my original intention with this piece and my other pieces here on AO3: I originally wanted to use them as a springboard to link to my Tumblr, which would help me build an audience to make an erotica career that I could, hopefully, make a little extra scratch on.
> 
> That...didn't happen. I mean, it could've happened? But I decided to use my time differently. The Tumblr I used for Skyler is gone now, mostly because I was going through some Stuff with an IRL friendship that fell apart towards the end of the first volume, and I just did it for...no real reason that I can recall, lol.
> 
> So why am I still here? Because I like this story. Because I like anybody weird enough to continue reading this story. Because I just kinda like writing porn in general, even beyond Thanatos. Not that I ever considered stopping this story--I just needed time off--but hey.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this. It's going to go to some PLACES, folks....


	10. Beatings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riku beats Axel. Belle beats Roxas. Roxas beats himself. Xion, perhaps, beats the odds.

Was the guy named Riku? Was he sure? I mean, _really_ sure? Silver hair and everything? Self-serious as sin? Yes, yes, yes, definitely, and God yes. Of course Axel was sure, too, because Riku had spent most of the afternoon and a little of the evening beating him senseless.

"You need to stop lying," said Riku. It was just them, Axel and Riku in one of the many white rooms beneath the mansion. Riku had sore knuckles. Axel had handcuffs around his wrists and a growing pool of blood around his feet. Frankly, it was a rather unbalanced division of power.

"Don't get me wrong," said Axel, and he turned to spit blood at the white wall. It trickled deliciously, forking, oozing., making him feel rather like an artist. How long till the whole room went red with this blood? "I'm _so_ flattered that you think I'm this great of a liar. Because I am, honestly. Great at lying. Enjoy it, even. But the Organization's dead, so there's no point in it. In any of it. Any of this. Trust me when I tell you that I'm being totally, completely self-interested here when I say that _you are wasting your time, none of this is my fault, and you have much bigger fish to fry_."

This provoked a predictable response.

After this response, Axel slid against the wall into his personal ever-growing puddle of blood. "Know what? I think you don't even think you're gonna get anything from me. I think you just want to hurt somebody. Which, I mean, I get that! I'm not trying to yuck your yum. Your whole world is dead. Your...girlfriend? Kairi your girlfriend? Or just a friend?" Axel flashed a mouth full of bloody teeth. "I mean, I don't want to assume, right? Could be platonic, could be polyamorous! I like to think I'm a modern sort of Nobody."

Bam. Pow. Right in the kisser.

"You're, ah, not great at torture, are you?" Axel paused to spit out a tooth. "You're too nice, for one. Even when you _want_ to hurt people, you don't like it when it's time to do it. You're the kind of person who can tear up Heartless and lesser Nobodies like there's no tomorrow just for the experience of it, right? Just the feeling. I bet it makes you feel like a real badass. Stronger and stronger with every one, huh? And I bet after all of that that you really fucking _hate_ how cool you feel. Wanna tear it out?" He grinned, stuck out his tongue. "I won't talk anymore. Bet it'd be a lot easier."

"You're really sick."

"You're beating the shit out of me and using Cure magic so you can keep beating the shit out of me _after_ I've told you all I know, but go off I guess. Boy, I bet Kairi would be disappointed in you for this, huh? I'll just tell her when you throw me back in the cell, how 'bout that?"

Riku winced. Bingo. "She knows I'm not a good person."

"Yeah, all that evil is crawling in your skin. Go do everybody a favor and join the Black Parade already, why don't you?" Axel frowned. "Are you kids still listening to those guys? God, I'm old."

"You had nothing to do with what happened to ho--to the Destiny Islands," said Riku. Staring into the white wall, rubbing his knuckles.

"I didn't. The Organization didn't either. You do know that all us bad guys don't just...hang out, right?"

"But Roxas did. Xion too, I think, but she wasn't there."

"The second time, then," said Axel. He took a deep breath. Didn't even want to say it out loud. It always made it more real, saying it out loud. "Yeah. I didn't have anything to do with what they did. If it was them at all."

"Why?"

"I don't know. They were different from us Nobodies. They talked about Uplifting, whatever that means. Kept saying that Kairi was a princess, wanted her to come with them. I..." Axel swallowed. Tasted blood. "Man, I don't know. Roxas didn't look like himself. Didn't act right either." He shook his head. Those eyes. God, those hungry yellow eyes. God, those soft lips. "Nobodies and Heartless, and before that--we've got records at the Organization, or we used to--something called Unversed. Don't think this is any of them."

"Then what is it?"

"New fish in the pond. Much bigger, much hungrier." Axel laughed bitterly. "Getting real, real fat. Good that you stopped beating me, buddy, because I'm pretty sure I just saved your girlfriend from being just another meal to all those horny Uplifted out there."

Riku's mouth twitched, and Axel knew that he'd crossed a line. "Who said I was done beating you?"

* * *

 

Crowning the New Tower in Beast's Castle was the jagged, creaking metal-and-bone abomination called the Longinus. Not that anyone ever called it that except for Belle. In fact, Belle herself never called it that out loud. Well-read as she was, she would die before she said "The Longinus" out loud. The humiliation of being _that person_ would've eaten her alive.

The castle turrets rose high, converged into that New Tower. Veins and strands of flesh held it high above the entire castle. The walls of flesh surrounded the Longinus, this bone-and-meat-and-steel spear pointed at the sky like a night terror of Sigmund Freud.

Even now the gears clanked, the chemical mist gushed as the Longinus pulled itself apart in preparation for the new Princess of Heart, Alice. Belle climbed the staircase of the New Tower now, the stone steps beneath her feet giving way to flesh. Her mind raced--it always raced, had raced for as long as she could remember. Thoughts spilled over, blended, twisted. Twisted. What a twisted hand she'd been dealt! Queen of the damned she was, and preparing to drag other universes into Hell along with her. And it was a sort of Hell, she knew, despite her insistence to the others that it was Heaven. Heaven lacked appetites, the church said.

Heaven was hardly worth the trouble without appetites.

Belle stood at the top of her tower, soaking in the sweetness of her work. The materials from dead Worlds were on their way, would always be on their way because the sky brimmed with stars to eat. The princesses were nearly all accounted for, save one--and she had a good idea of where that last Princess was.

So why did she feel so nauseous? Why had she awakened that morning from a dream of all the villagers back home throwing rocks at her--not just the girls who had done so only once when she was young, laughing, scoffing--but all of them, their mouths opening, little lights shining from their throats, light spilling out and smelling of sickness and flooding all the world over, consuming Belle and all of her servants in a wave of holy vomit....

Why feel so sick when she was the antidote to the sickness? Belle did not linger on that question long enough to answer it.

After all, the real thorn-in-the-side villagers were dead. Gaston was _especially_ dead, stabbed in the back by the very woman he'd swooned over his whole life. That was a fun one. And Beast was...well, Beast was alive, at least. Belle would eventually decide how to deal with him. It was the way he looked at her that made it so difficult. Always a little different every time. How could she get used to so many different shades of betrayal? So many tiny variations of heartbreak?

Maybe two or three weeks from now she'd kill him. Get that whole thing over with, you know. Move on.

You know?

Strands of meat dragged a glowing glass pod through the air. It spun grotesquely in the dim open-air moonlight, glowing in its own pulsing light. One of the many glass containers for the seven princesses of heart, all of them gleaming like jewels along the shaft of the Longinus. The princesses, their eyes shut tight, hugged their knees. In a fetal position they looked for all the world like newborn angels.

Belle hoped that they were dreaming good dreams. An eternity of good dreams for each of them, in fact, and all the other Princesses of Heart in all the other infinite universes would be treated to the same eternity of joy. What was infinity times infinity, really, with more infinities on top?

At the tip of the Longinus, that last gleaming glass container. This was for Belle herself. She was certain that the Longinus could take off with that--her heart was, she knew from her research, incorruptible save for the infection of the Uplifted. All would be well. She--conscious, of course, unlike the others--would be the first of them to see what came next. A new beginning, bursting with ripe screams.

Screams of pleasure, naturally.

Naturally.

And in the middle of Belle's thoughts, as she looked over her opus, of _course_ that simpering servant Roxas would come.

Oh, of course he had his uses. So eager he was. So desperate to be liked, to be needed. Very easy to control someone like that. And he was strong, of course, and he was horny, of course. All useful for strategy or stress relief. But by and large, Belle found herself growing tired of him. And now here he was, after that successful mission to Wonderland, for what?

"Hi, Belle," he mumbled.

"Hello," she said. "What brings you here?"

"Um. The Longinus," he stammered. "I figured that Alice was added and all, so I should be the one to give you a status report on the progress of it all. Because Xion and me, we were the ones to get her, and--"

"I _know_ that, thank you," said Belle. She wished she had a notepad to look meaningfully at, just to show how little she cared about him.

Roxas winced satisfactorily. "O-okay. I understand."

"Do you? Because it doesn't seem like there's much you _understand_. Have you been feeding Beast? Oh, don't give me that look. Don't say a word. I know you've been forgetting. Your inferiors have been telling me all about it. Not that they need to tell me. Setting my eyes on that bag of patchy fur and bones, I don't need to ask them, to ask you. Oh, you tell me that you _understand_. What a lovely word. What do you understand? Why don't you tell me?"

"I--"

Belle lifted her hand and did what came so naturally, now. Did what she was so good at these days. She slapped him across the face.

It was funny, almost, because his eyes got so wide every time. As if he didn't know, each time. At this point it must've been because he wanted it. Otherwise he would've just done something else. Moved out of the way, raised his keyblade. A boy like this is asking for it, truth be told. As for how pleasurable Belle found it, that could be chalked up to that pesky Uplifted infection inside of her. Clearly that made the look of shock, the begging for forgiveness, that made the blood run hot through her fingers. And now she had to keep him here for a moment, because she needed to see the way the skin on his cheek went pink. So she gripped his shoulder and felt him shake.

Pink cheek, pink like cotton candy and the setting sun behind a crowd of neighborhood children throwing little pebbles, little rocks (rox) at the weird girl with her stacks of books one afternoon ten and change years ago.

Very sick was Belle with the Uplifted thing and of course very sad because of that. Obviously, it did not feel good or exciting to hurt the young boy, and obviously it was no one's fault but illness that she decided to slap him again, watch that peachy cheek go apple red, watch little flecks of saliva fly from his lips.

Anyway, he did not move or say anything.

Roxas was a good boy.

* * *

 

Roxas was not crying. He was strong now, a real adult just like Axel. And Axel, even after everything on those Islands--no hard feelings--Axel wouldn't cry, right? Nobody he knew (har har, "Nobody") cried, and so it was a bit of a joke that Roxas was running down the stairwell with his eyes streaming. Deeply ironic, tons of layers! It was especially absurd because none of this was new, because he'd seen Belle a million times before and suffered accordingly, and he kept going anyway. In a way he deserved it.

 _I'm such a pussy_ , thought Roxas, and the tears came again. So hard this time that he stopped on the stair, touched the slimy flesh wall for support and began bawling. It wouldn't stop. He tried to make it stop and it wouldn't _stop_. He was disgusted with himself.

A girl--a girl of all things!--hurting him and he was this broken up. She'd done it before, hadn't she? As was her right, she being so wise and perfect, he being so dumb and empty inside. It should've been funny, a slap from a girl. Whomp whomp, cue the TV sitcom applause. Commercial time. Hey, have you ever driven around a mountain for no reason at all? Well....

Roxas settled into a font of misery, standing on the stair. Uplifted lurched, crawled, fluttered past him, and he simply _was_. In time he became himself, and thought about Xion.

Xion was so odd recently, and that frightened him. It awakened forgotten fears and nervous dreams from back in the Organization. Made him question things. But Xion, she also _listened_. She cared about him, no matter what anybody thought. That's what he needed, yes, that's what could bring him to stand up from the stair and race down for her. He would find some kind of assurance, would find at the very least a smile or _any_ thing.

Roxas trumbled down the tower stairs from flesh to stone, turned, flew out into the hallways where the Heartless and Uplifted shuffled businesslike from one appointment to another, and found himself surprised by his own thoughts. He was expecting to think of her tits, and that wasn't _not_ in his mind. They were quite nice, very pert, very soft and suckable. But it was the overwhelming Xionness of her that made the sting of Belle's hand disappear, that dragged a smile out of the self-loathing muck, that made him so happy. The matter-of-fact jokes she made. The way she ran her fingers down his cheek to his lips sometimes, when the forest outside of the Castle was too silent and Roxas became terrified of what life might not lurk outside. The way she was there some nights, was simply there when Roxas awakened in bed sweating and scared.

She rested her head on the side of his chest, feather-light, as if his own anxieties weren't threatening to snatch him up into the sky.

Head full of these images, he threw the door open in the basement of Beast's Castle.

I suspect you've got some idea of what Roxas was about to see.

It would've been a nicer world if you could've told him.

Xion's room was no longer Xion's room. It belonged to nobody now. Her computers were piles of broken plastic and silicone, some of it flung across the room in sharp piles. The piles of clothes, cloaks and casual outfits she wore through the castle, were all gone. Her books, incoherent philosophy and yellowing pages of Edgar Allen Poe and Thomas Ligotti, were gone. The [abstract posters](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Egon_Schiele#/media/File:Egon_Schiele_-_Female_Nude.jpg) were not gone but rather, torn to shreds on the walls.

The posters and the bed were the only cold signs that the room had been occupied. Roxas sat down on the bed--the sheets too were torn, passionately--and gazed at the shreds of the posters. Pieces of one poster clung obscenely in front of him.

The poster had been a nude human girl once, with long black curly hair and lips that parted in a shy, white-toothed smile. The girl knelt before the window of the painting, her black skirt tilting up to reveal the curly hair above her pussy and the red lips. The whole thing was impossible, couldn't work with any sense of realistic perspective, but perhaps that was the point.

Or maybe the artist just really wanted to draw some pussy.

Roxas didn't have the answers to these questions. He couldn't even come up with the questions anymore. All he knew was that there had been unspeakably lovely art on sweet Xion's wall, and this piece of art was now a set of tattered body parts.

The left eye of the torn poster stared back at Roxas. The eye was unreadable, and the single cheek beneath it blushed furiously. The pussy of the poster girl had been perfectly preserved, a mound of pink pink in a sketchy black-and-white pair of thighs trailing off into shreds. Roxas glanced briefly at the eye, stared for a long time at the space between the legs, and got hard.

Roxas finished himself off in the corner of Xion’s room and came with his eyes closed.

* * *

 

It could have, Xion mused, gone worse.

Admittedly, she was thinking this in a Twilight Town alley while frigging her pussy and taking a sort of emotional inventory, but she was pretty imaginative when it came to worst possible scenarios. This? This was fine.

Roxas had doubtless discovered that she was gone now. She'd really done a number on her old room, after all. She hadn't meant to. It had all just felt like too much, _everything_ had, and it felt natural to summon her keyblade to smash everything around her to pieces. Images on walls. A computer with all the data she'd stolen from the Organization--she'd backed it up beforehand, wasn't an idiot, was just furious. Books and outfits she never wore and a few mildly enchanted sex toys.

Roxas would mourn for a time, then, and wonder if he should go to Belle.

He would. Of course he would. Xion felt no bitterness about it; that was who he was now. _What_ he was, that is--not Roxas anymore in the same way that she wasn't Xion anymore. Identities slipped downriver. And anyway, none of that mattered because she was pushing her back against the brick wall in the alley, was flicking her clit, was snatching images of the past few hours or longer to her mind, immersing herself, riding some echo of it all in pursuit of that fleeting pleasure.

Hayner, Pence, Ollette.

She'd wanted to take them all, to take them completely, to conquer them for all time. It would've been so easy. They all would've been so easy, and they were there offering themselves to her as if she was a goddess...

Well, as the Mad Hatter said, it was best to begin at the beginning.

After destroying the latest dingy hole that served as a home, the dark corridors had spat Xion out in the wet tunnels beneath Twilight Town, cold and shuddering, terrified.

For a moment Xion stood in the corner of the dark system of chambers. Water trickled. Frantically she pointed her keyblade back and forth, expecting...what?

Silence. There was only silence.

She wasn't used to being alone anymore. Xion lowered her Keyblade. Walked down the path. In the daylight now, surrounded by the cozy buildings of Twilight Town, the thought hit her suddenly: she wondered if she'd ever had the luxury of being alone at all.

No answer there.

Anyone could've watched her at any point. Xemnas must have back in the day, when she hadn't yet murdered the Organization one-by-one in their own castle. (That had been a hell of a thing, by the way, and would've been quite impossible if Xion hadn't known the layout of the castle, the schedules of her fellow members, and had not possessed immortal loathing borne of the research she had stolen from Castle Oblivion. There had been much more to her strategy, but she wished to keep it close to her chest.)

Xion took to the air, wind whipping around her tattered black cloak, and landed on the Twilight Town tram graceful as a raven. Her hands slipped to her own knees. Cold and knobby. She pressed them, massaged them. Nothing helped there and then, but...oh no, oh, of course.

All of those oh-so-complicated emotions were colliding inside, fusing, collapsing into lust. She huffed, crossed her arms. Her body could demand all it wanted. She was in no mood to cater to it.

Xion watched the buildings roll on by. She paid special attention to the windows. Always the Organization had sent her to Twilight Town when the people there were asleep or indoors. Sometimes she had ridden the tram just like she was now, alone, taking it all in, wondering what sort of lives the people here were allowed to live. Wondering if they had their own schedules dictated to them like she did. Wondering how free they were, wondering if she could ever gather up the courage to ask.

Too late, all too late. Xion hopped off at the commerce center, fluttering black on the town's sunset orange. She drew her hood and began to wander.

They were here. She was certain of it. All of the information said as much, the info she gave to Belle and that which she kept to herself. Not as wise as he thought himself, that Ansem. All she had to do now was nail those last specifics, find the resistance, and...well.

Not get murdered, to begin with. That would be a great start.

But as she walked the emptier streets of Twilight Town, Xion began to wonder if she had enough to go on after all. Yes, Twilight Town was an ideal spot for espionage against the Organization. Yes, only Ansem had the cosmological knowledge to set up in a place like this, to recruit Riku, to understand the importance of trying to rescue the princess Kairi--all of these among other clues.

Great. Okay.

 _Except Twilight Town was actually very, very big_.

And no, Xion hadn't expected it either. She'd always thought of it in terms of discrete areas, all pretty barren save the occasional enemy, item, or objective. Little discrete areas. But it wasn't that, it was a whole damn _world_ with whole damn _suburbs_ and a whole damn _economy_. A few hours after arriving, all black cloak and golden keyblade, she found herself feeling a lot less like a badass and a lot more like a homeless kid.

Xion listened to passersby and lurked behind corners, and...nothing. No Organization waypoints, no information from Belle's network of Uplifted at this point and time. This was it. Exhausted, enraged, miserably horny, Xion stopped upon a set of stairs to catch her breath.

"It _was_ 14\. Back when Rai counted, I guess? Although, uh, I guess _that_ wasn't there. And--ah!"

Somebody jumped. So did Xion. The two stood on the stair, blinking at one another.

"Um." The somebody swallowed. "Sorry. I think my brain is full of stairs? Kinda lost control there and just, uh, almost barreled into you."

"You're good," said Xion, because that's what you're supposed to say. "I'm just in the middle of traffic here. My bad."

"Nah. I'm all in my head," said the somebody. He laughed...nervously? No, not nervously. He was one of those rare people who laughed in conversation, laughed at himself or others, and meant it sweetly. His hair was dark, sprouted out from behind a headband like a fern, and his clothing was baggy to hide a few extra pounds. He owned it, though.

"Are you okay?" he said suddenly. "You don't look so good."

"I don't?" News to her. She felt fabulous. "I feel fine," she said. It sounded rather cold when she put it out there, but, well, no problem. "I'm on a diet," she added suddenly. _A diet that turned me into a parasite-infected succubus that wants to fuck and consume the entire universe_ , she thought. _Does wonders for your weight, but really does a number on your complexion._

"Oh," said the boy, and _there_ was that nervous laugh. Had to work a bit to get to it. It was a sweet one, almost musical. "Do you, um, live nearby? My name is Pence, by the way." He extended his hand.

The nervous laughter was a little contagious. Xion laughed and shook his hand there on the stair. "Alright. Charmed, Pence," she said. And batted her eyelids at him for a bit of fun. Let him wonder her name for a bit, right? Harmless enough.

"Same to you, Miss."

"Miss," said Xion, tasting the word, feeling both flattered and restricted by the word. Ah well. Pence sat beside her on the stair. How ideal. That bright smile, those eyes, and--though they were baggy too--those legs that walked long and hard. "What's that about counting stairs?"

* * *

 

There was no need for many toxins. The natural ones sufficed, those instinctual glands that turned all the air around the Uplifted into something sweet and chocolate-dark. The boy Pence was easy. She pulled him into one of those many alleys that was, so Pence stammered, home to one of the wonders of Twilight Town that he was in the process of documentiwhat okay um wow thanks what

The truth was that it had less to do with Pence's cock or Xion's desire for information and a lot more to do with the pleasant feeling of being _needed_. It was an easy role to slip into.

His cock was thick, mushroom shaped. Rare and uncircumcised. She planted kisses along its shaft, tasting the sweat, savoring the whimpers.

She would be, at this moment, the Girl. She would show up in a wacky situation, this boy studying the Seven Wonders of Twilight Town, and she would suck all of his problems right up through his cock. There we go, kiddo. You're saved. Just come in my mouth and everything will be okay forever, alright? I'll save you.

God, though, there was a real kick to that. She wrapped her lips around Pence's cock, hard and shockingly thick, and loved how quiet he was. The repression. Even as she trailed her fingers up his ass in some forgotten alley of the town he was so quiet, just grunting like a fucking caveman as she felt the tingle of his cock on the back of her throat, as her fingers united in his asshole and began to play. His cock belonged to her mouth, his ass to her fingers.

She popped his cock out of her mouth for a moment to boast. "You like my fingers in your ass?"

"Whydyoustoppleasedontstop--"

She tilted her head, as if confused. "Stop what?" She brushed her fingers lightly against his cock. He almost wheezed.

"Don't stop sucking."

"Why?" Oh, this was almost as fun as sucking him, this teasing, this brushing. His cock gleamed wet in the dim light, bouncing with the sharp pants of his breath, with the light frigging in his tight asshole. "Do you want to come in there? In the mouth of this girl you barely know?"

"I gotta, please let me, I just gotta."

"Beg."

"Pleasepleasepleaseplease _please_ pl-aaah!"

That shut him up--she took his whole length to the back of her throat. His fingers clutched her scalp. Slowly, flicking with her tongue all the while, she brought him out...and in...and out...and in...

Pence tried to thrust, tried to direct it himself, but Xion gave his thigh a sharp pinch when he tried. Down, boy. You're mine. You'll come when I want you to. And oh, she wanted him to, could feel it coming on. The boys all had different sounds at times like this--some moaning, some growling, some sounding like rusty door hinges. Pence, he just kept repeating the word "Miss," over and over again. A mantra.

She let him thrust now. He gripped her head from the back, shoved his warm thick cock deep--"Miss, oh miss, I--ah! Miss! Gonna come I'm sorry gotta come Miss I"--thrusting quick and thoughtlessly, faster and faster till one last time. He crumbled against the wall; she felt his cock twitch and fire. His spunk was so hot, so salty, so thick--she rode the taste, the Uplifted inside of her adding a strange sweetness to it; she immersed herself in the feeling of that hard cock finishing in her.

Pence expected to be tired. He was counting on it, really, because he was late to meet with Hayner and Olette, and had a ton of apologies prepared for her. Not that this would be the last time they met, he hoped. But maybe...

Anyway, all of that was contingent on him not still being rock hard and startlingly horny. And he was definitely both of those things.

"I can't--I mean I want to--I mean--" Pence glanced around the alley, heart pounding. This was like a dream. Shouldn't be happening in real life. Something was off, and he couldn't figure out what. "I have to meet with my friends," he said helplessly.

Xion swallowed. Wiped her mouth with her hand, met his eyes. "That won't be a problem," she said. "In fact, I think I'd like to meet them." She smiled. "I'm _certain_ that I'd like to meet them."

 


	11. Everything Seemed So

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xion plays with dolls. Hayner, Pence, and Olette experience a night they will never, ever forget. Riku ignores DiZ's venom, and damages real estate. Namine drowns in DiZ's fury, and that is normal.

 

Everything slid. Time slid, to begin with. Decency slinked off into the dark; she wasn't interested in watching the four of them. Why? Because they had been sliding too, rubbing against one another, lost in falling grains of sand. Hayner. Pence. Olette. The outsider.

Lost in bodies.

The outsider sat bare-assed on the couch, head on her chin, watching the other three go at it. The outsider smiled. She wasn't bothering to touch herself now; there was something still more perverse about keeping both hands away from her throbbing pussy, about just watching them fuck in front of her, in front of the very girl who dragged these puppets together in a little fuckshow. (The other reason was because she was pleasantly tired, glowing with orgasm, and too full of human cum to bother anymore.)

An hour ago (or two? or three? or four? or...) Pence had taken the outsider to the meeting place, all apologies and "ums." The place was off in an alley, a hole in a fence leading to a little hideaway. Ratty furniture, tattered posters, a wasteland corner blanketed in a comfort both inexplicable and bone-deep. Xion presented the most glowing ladylike appearance that she could manage with the taste of his cock and cum on her tongue. There the four had exchanged formalities and hollow introductions ("oh it's a school project" and "I met her on the steps" etc etc) before the outsider had bored of it all and begun to exude toxin for her own amusement.

Was this--this project the three humans were working on, the secret place, the laughter and stories--was all of it what normal people did? The outsider knew she viewed the world through warped lenses, had always done so. First distortion to those lenses, the assumption that everyone had a heart and she--and her friends in the Organization--did not. A little digging into Xemnas's files got rid of that one and a whole host of others, though it introduced other problems.

Second distortion, the gnaw of endless lust. At times the outsider found herself thinking of the world entire as not cities upon cities full of people, but as the meat aisle of a marketplace. Or did she? Maybe that had been a nightmare. It had been a true one.

Xion grounded herself. Tried to wipe away the distortions and just listen. It was interesting for a time, certainly, but as they yammered on about school projects and summer vacations, gossiped about the other kids in Twilight Town and wondered what happened to some "goth boy" they met earlier in the summer, talked about television and video games and defined themselves by media they consumed, occasionally referred to the mission--the project--that they were supposedly here to do, on and on, Xion found herself at the end of her rope.

So she played with them.

A little bit at first. Faint whiffs of cotton candy. Pence was the first to be affected, him having the most contact with her. She stifled a snort of laughter when his noble cock made another ripple in that baggy denim, found herself looking around to make sure that the others weren't watching her watch the dick. They weren't, probably. What a joke, that some part of her mind still worried about that. The old ideals die hard.

Far more interesting than even that cock of his was the way Pence began to sweat, the way he began to move close to the sweet dark-haired girl named Olette. Olette, she smelled like dried orange slices and ginger spices. The outsider felt like the director of a nature documentary. Inch by inch, our subject moves shuffles closer to the object of his desire.

Not that the muscular blonde, Hayner, was immune to the start of the toxins. He shoved his hands in his obnoxious baggy camo pants ( _oh god do humans really allow one another to dress like this? why? why would any civil society permit such barbarism?_ ) and rolled his neck. Tried not to glance at the rise and fall of Olette's chest.

How far could the outsider push this with just the first dose of toxin? She grinned. What a delightful new game. Sure, she had her own goals here, but she wasn't in a rush. No reason not to play around.

The subject landed on Hayner's eternal failure to earn the affections of some girl he went to class with, some Lucretia. Once again he'd struck out, with the girl going out with some dorky goth boy named Vincent.

"Vincent," Hayner spat. "Even the name sucks. How obvious can you get?" He slumped over dramatically, flopped his hair to the side. "Oh, my name is Vincent. Vincent Valentine. Oh, you couldn't tell from the name? I'm a goth." Hayner put some real spittle into the end of the last word there. Olette giggled, Pence snorted. The three of them subtly moved closer to one another. "Life is meaningless," Hayner sobbed. "So I mean are you free this Saturday?"

Olette shook her head. She and Pence sat on the couch now, Hayner on a seat across from them, with the outsider comfortably on the floor near the exit. "Valentine's a lot to deal with."

Pence set his hand on the space between them.

"There are other girls," said the outsider, "aren't there?"

Hayner faced Xion, blinking. This new girl hadn't said much up until now. Why was she smiling like that? "No offense, but I don't think this is any of your business."

Pence winced. "Hayner--"

"I mean that, I'm really not trying to be a dick. You just don't know the situation."

Well, alright then. Maybe just a wee bit of toxin would do the trick. Xion nodded, ever the understanding stranger, and the atmosphere of the room sweetened.  "I'm sorry," she said--you know, like a liar.

Hayner sighed. Deep breaths all around. They were beginning to sweat too, to lick their lips without realizing it. Perfect. "It's fine," he muttered. "Just gets old, you know?" He wasn't checking out Olette anymore. Xion smiled brightly, fluttered her eyelids--he was looking at her. As for Pence, he was yawning a little too loudly now, falling back against the cushion, scooting right next to Olette.

"I'm kinda tired," Pence stammered energetically, "so uh do you mind if I uh lie here a bit? I don't want to make you move," he added, which was only half-true.

Olette blinked. She was looking pretty flushed herself, tugging at her dress straps anxiously, glancing for split seconds at the bump in Pence's shorts, gazing sometimes into his eyes. "That's fine."

"You're okay with moving, you mean?" Pence asked, sounding disappointed.

"No," said Olette softly. "I don't need to move."

As for Hayner, he sat down beside the outsider and proceeded to stare at the wall to the left of them both. "I wasn't snapping at you. I mean, was I snapping at you?"

"No," said Xio--

"I'm trying to get better about that stuff," said Hayner. "Don't want to be somebody who snaps at people."

"I get that," said Xion.

"You do?"

"I do. My, uh," and she blanked for a moment, grasped for a lie. "My dad was like that. I feel like that sometimes too."

Hayner looked at her now. "Oh. Wow." He swallowed. "No shit?"

"Yep," said Xion. This was technically a lie. She didn't have a dad. She just had Xemnas and Vexen.

"I'm sorry," said Hayner. He'd been moving towards her for a while now. Now he brushed his thigh against hers. She felt the warmth of it through the fabric of her Organization pants.

"It sucks," said Xion, not knowing what else to say, not expecting that she'd have to talk this much with her playthings.

Up on the couch, Pence was resting his head on Olette's shoulder, but not for long. He shuffled uncomfortably, she took his head, softly planted it on her thigh. His eyes were closed. Hers were not; Xion caught her staring now at the thick bulge in Pence's shorts.

Olette caught Xion's eyes. A flash of lightning passed between them--amusement, mostly, though buried beneath, something dark and delicious. Xion winked. Olette swallowed, flushed. Winked back awkwardly.

The three were all flushed now, all breathing raggedly. All it would take was one last push. Xion put her hand on Hayner's thigh. Squeezed. Stared into his glazed orange eyes.

She ran her fingers up his throat lightly, up to his chin. Stroked his lips--he pursed them together.

Xion stole her kiss. The orgy began.

At once Hayner was on the outsider. The kiss was an addiction and he needed more, needed the sweetness of not just the cotton candy smell but of those lips, of her soft low laugh after the first kiss, needed all of it. Xion obliged him, turned her neck, relished the way this born lover knew to kiss there too. He was above her now, kissing her neck sloppily. If the outsider wasn't having such a great time, perhaps she would've glanced up at Pence and Olette--but no, she was absorbed in this for now, and the low, ululating moan Olette made spoke more than any image could.

Ululating. What a great word. "Bite me," said Xion, and he did, and she let out a low ululating moan of her own, kicked out her leg. The Uplifted parts of her stirred in her, but no--not now, not here. Why? She didn't know. As delicious as it would've been to pin them all to the walls and fuck them mercilessly with tentacles till they stopped begging for more and fell into a long slumber, she didn't want that  _now_. Later, certainly. Now?

She wanted this kiss. Wanted this rough nervous teenage caress over her clothed breast, wanted the threat of a cock between two pairs of clothing brushing against her thigh. Wanted this boy who alternated between bravado and "is this alright? how about this, is this alright? and this? this?" Body heat on top of her, warmer than Roxas and the Heartless and any of the Uplifted, a nearly smothering heat.

Because he wouldn't ask himself even with the toxin, wouldn't do it to himself or to her, Xion brushed him off for a moment--"Did I do something wrong?"--and began to unbutton her black coat.

The outsider saw Pence and Olette now. Saw a whole lot more of Olette than Pence, really, because Olette's legs were wide and bare. One rested on the high side of the couch, the other dangled over the floor. Olette looked like she didn't notice or care. The whole of Olette was with Pence between her legs. He crouched over her pussy, kissing, sucking, frigging, and Olette lost her mind. (The outsider unfastened her bra.) She whispered pet names now--he must've really hit something valuable down there--and called him honey and baby and begged him to kiss her slutty, slutty pussy, or to maybe, to maybe...

Pence didn't get the hint.

"To maybe...." Olette repeated, stretching her legs out, beaming, "do more?"

Hayner kissed Xion's breast so gently that it stole the world away. It was all there in those lips, in the light uncertain flick of his tongue against her pert nipples. The fabric of her trousers squeaked absurdly as she stretched her legs, wrapped them around him, gasped.

"You like this?" asked Hayner, which seemed ridiculous, but he cared. He was  _asking_. Xion plunged into a fantasy she'd had, into a dream of being a high schooler in a television drama sort of world where everything added up and the cute good girls went home with the strong jock boys, and nothing bad happened. She let herself become someone else.

"I do, I do," she whispered, stretching, rubbing and flicking her other nipple with her fingers before scampering down her stomach to her waiting pussy and touching where she really needed it. "Bite it. Lightly. Please."

He did. Lightly. Very pleasing.

Fucking marvelous.

Not enough, though, not by far. The outsider rode the high of Hayner's lips and his teeth but watched, always watched, the two other lovers on the couch.

Pence and Olette lay fully nude and embracing, Olette atop him, their lips locked, their sweat sparkling in the dim light. Xion watched Pence--Pence of all people--run his nails down her back to her fine ass and give it a short, quick slap. Olette moaned into his mouth. Xion looked down at Hayner, moving back and forth between her tits, and decided to move things on a bit.

"Pants off," said Xion.  _Now_ , she thought. "Please?" she said.

"My pants?" Hayner repeated, blinking.

"Did I stutter?"

"No, I, um, I don't," he looked helplessly around the floor as if it'd help him, "I don't have a condom?"

"My tubes are tied," said Xion, which was definitely a lie because it more had to do with her being an humanoid eldritch abomination than human surgical procedures.

That was useful and totally valid. The birth control bits, that is. Not the eldritch nightmare parts, which were fairly distinct and, if I may interrupt your fap to editorialize for a moment, questionable at best.

Hayner dropped his pants and underwear at once without fumbling. His cock bounced, straightened. Six inches, just slightly above average. Dripping with obscene, truly lewd amounts of precum. The need in that hardness, in that shining precum, made her still wetter. A huge pink bulb at the end of a dick that curved almost as much as the toys Xion left in her old room. Almost as curved as a banana, really, but no potassium here.

"Just Vitamin D," muttered Xion, a terrible pun monster at large, as she admired it for a moment--every cock, every pussy, they were all so utterly unique--and she bunched up the waist of her pants in her hands, slid them down her legs, and watched Hayner's face carefully, hungrily.

First Hayner went red, and then he went white. Xion stretched her legs, eager to expose as much of that pink wet pussy as she could.

A painting for you:

The backdrop, a hole-in-a-city of throwaway furniture and beaten decorations where three teens can feel less alone. On the right, a long couch, the girl Olette has traded places with her boy, Pence. If Pence's dick wasn't so thick, perhaps she wouldn't be able to bring those breasts of hers, coated in spittle and precum, up and down the sides of it. Perhaps he wouldn't be gasping and moaning--nearly singing!--her name.

Everything is faintly in pink. The painting itself tastes of cotton candy.

Xion caught Olette looking at her again, a solid steel bar sort of look.

Oh, she knew. Somewhere inside, beneath the toxin and the gushing body, beneath the logical questions she was pouring over about the strange new girl, Olette  _knew_ that it all came down to the new arrival, knew that there was something toxic in the air, knew all of it deep in her heart. What was she going to do about it? How did she feel about it? She was clearly having a great time, wasn't she?

The outsider debated vaguely about whether or not to murder Olette, at which point Hayner's cock slipped through her outer lips and into her pussy. Xion moaned sharply at first, and then lowly. She stretched her legs high at either side, relishing the slick slowness of his uncertainty, clenching her walls to feel as deeply as she could the slightest bumps in his human cock. It was a fine one if he knew how to use it--and Xion would teach him how if she had to, damn it.

"Slow for now," she panted. Hayner nodded. Still gushing precum, he slid out nearly to the tip--it was exquisite, actually--and very slowly, the sliding making the lewdest noise, pushing back into her to the hilt.

Xion couldn't stop herself from groaning with pleasure. Her legs twitched. She looked up from the base of his cock, the base of her pussy, up to the toned stomach and slim musculature of the boy. Not a gym body, and not a supernatural body like that of Roxas. A body that soaked in sunlight, a body that grew strong by running across concrete...that was what she wanted inside of her now. Softly she ran her fingernails down his chest and he pulled back with that sublime slowness, pushed forward with the same deliberate thrust.

Alright, that was all very sweet and cute, but Xion had had enough. She pushed herself towards him and gave him a sharp, hungry smile.

Hayner got the hint. First he was cautious, going just a little faster--his hands ran up and down her thighs as he thrust, a lovely sensation for Xion that nonetheless masked his nervousness, even as she bucked against the stiffness running back and forth inside--and something seemed to snap. He bucked hard, sharp, almost painfully. Glanced apologetically, started to say his sorry out loud. Xion stopped him before he could start, humming deliciously, locking eyes with him for the briefest moment, and that was all that it took.

He was fucking her hard now and she could ride it between her legs, ride it far away. Roxas and Belle and Axel and the blood of the Organization that clung still to her hands and the sweet girl Alice and all of the other people she had opened her lower mouth to swallow as Roxas rose his spear of meat to hunt, all of them could fall away. Did humans do this too? Probably not. Only a warped mind would turn to this, this idea of fucking away your personal horrors, this tossing and turning on a sea of pain. A human would lose herself, stretch her legs still wider or perhaps take a turn to make him the steed, would do all of this for only pleasure.

 _I'm broken_ , thought Xion, and she laughed, threw it away, began to repeat Hayner's name again and again until it almost drowned away the nightmare factory of her own mind. "Hayner, oh my god, Hayner, please fuck me harder, I need your cum, I need you to cum in my pussy, it's okay, please cum in my pussy, I--"

And so on, this crescendo of a good twenty minute fuck, running through Xion's mental dictionary of explicit words till his cork popped.

Hayner's eyes screwed up, his hands gripped her shins, fingernails dug in. Xion bucked closer, needing the hot cum inside of her, needing that human grime to settle and drip, make her feel dirty and needed, and he obliged. Hayner gasped wordlessly (she wished he'd said her name) and she let herself lose control, let herself feel the shivering cock of this boy she'd just met, let herself love being a beautiful-girl-from-nowhere for this beautiful moment. His cum spurted hot and sticky and deep. Not better than Roxas, exactly. Roxas, wasn't bad? Just different. An odd coldness to it.

Hayner folded over her. It was adorable. She ruffled his hair half-ironically. He moaned. That was a bit less cute.

Pence and Olette, they'd faded into the background the moment Hayner pulled out that cock of his and thrust. Her cunt still filling with that hot dirty mess, dark hair tangled with sweat against her forehead, Xion glanced to see what the two of them were up to.

They weren't there. Xion frowned, looked around, saw Olette, and...

Met her lips.

Olette, she was such a rough kisser. Even as Pence frigged Xion's pussy from behind Olette's head, Olette kissed with her teeth behind her lips. It was a bit much after being filled with Hayner's cum but it was  _nice,_  it was a kind of  _hunger_ , and Xion loved that.

She paused for a moment, though--her torso rocked with discomfort, the tentacles of the Uplifted begging for release, pressing against her skin--and Xion looked up at Olette's smile and considered it. Craned her head to look at Pence, grinning--winking, ridiculously--and Hayner, who regarded her with a sweet friendly smile now, his cock was rising again already, dripping with his own cum.

Xion looked at the faces of these people and wanted to make them hers forever. It would've been so easy, and they would've loved it. Just let the toxin hit critical and turn them into love dolls. Just let the tentacles writhe into them and spill eggs or darkness or whatever ridiculous bullshit spread the disease that was the Uplifted. Doing it would've made the discomfort stop, and who knew? Maybe it would stop forever this time. Maybe she would be free.

Instead she kissed Olette again, felt her fingers run over her breasts and, with an anxious thumb, slide past her nipple as if she was trying to avoid it. The kiss, though. The kiss was deep and deeper by the second till Olette cut it and (greedily!) pulled her lips back, beaming.  _And you think you've got power over me?_  Olette's smile said.

The outsider had no response. She just laughed--loud, unguarded--and the sweet slow luxury cruise that was that night began.

* * *

 

There were flashes of useful information in-between rounds of play. The outsider tried to keep it all in her head while fucking and getting the hell fucked out of her.

_(Anything odd? Odd stuff happens all the time. What do you mean?)_

Xion licked Olette's clit mercilessly, frigging her with four fingers like a demon. Above her, balls slapping a little too close for comfort, Hayner railed Olette's ass. Olette moaned into Pence's cock. Pence came for the fourth time that night--Olette clenched her ass, Hayner gasped and came. Cum spilled out over Xion's body below. She laughed.

_(Oh, well, Pence still believes in haunted houses. I'm more of a cryptid girl myself. Hayner's a Reddit atheist. Oh, don't look at me like that. You know it's true. Or--oh. Oh. Cute idea.)_

Olette and Xion now, nude, embracing, with nothing delicate about it. Kissing like they left their car keys in each other's mouths, kissing for air, and when they're not kissing they're leaving red bite welts across necks and cheeks and chests--but no lower. No lower because Hayner is shoving his cock between their two pussies, harder than he's been in his life, with a nervous but eager hand stroking the foreskin of Pence's cock. Pence ran a finger across Hayner's lips. Hayner's cock filled with lightning. Pence kissed those lips. Hayner shot his load between the two girls; the girls embraced, hot cum between their stomachs.

_(Oh, I don't know. People say all kinds of stuff about that mansion. Who knows, right? Black cloaks? Yeah, there's a ghost like that! Weird, right? Kinda like your cloak. Oh man, is it a goth? Are you just a bunch of goths? I, uh, sorry! Yeah, now that you mention it, sometimes there's a girl in white too! And on top of that, there's this old man in red! Hayner, what're you--)_

Pence shoved into Olette's pussy missionary style, juices dripping onto the floor of the hideout. He wasn't crying out with pleasure; he was too busy sucking Hayner's cock for that, quick and excited. Olette, on the other hand, licked the pussy above her head with the patience of an old pro, only shaken when Pence sped up to give her a real lovely, deep orgasm...and only shaken briefly, because Olette didn't stop until Xion fell back onto the floor, legs jelly, cunt dripping, face beet-red.

That girl was  _dangerous_.

( _I've got another idea, could you come over here?)_

The night didn't fly and it didn't drag. The night was one great moment, not a collection of them. The night was sweat and kisses and sex with black bitter notes of manipulation.

And then it was gone, though it was still night outside.

Now the outsider sat bare-assed on the couch, head on her chin, watching the other three go at it. The outsider smiled. She wasn't bothering to touch herself now; there was something still more perverse about keeping both hands away from her throbbing pussy, about just watching them fuck in front of her, in front of the very girl who dragged these puppets together in a little fuckshow. (The other reason was because she was pleasantly tired, glowing with orgasm, and too full of human cum to bother anymore.)

They were all the Old Mansion. They probably wouldn't kill her on sight. Maybe. Possibly. As for these three dunces fucking and laughing and making a mess of their hideout all night, she was done with them. They were riding the toxin and one another enough now that there was no way they'd notice her slipping out. So that's what she did.

Xion stepped out into the late night of Twilight Town, indistinguishable from any other time. The first cool airs of morning blessed her body. She felt sticky, but not unpleasantly so. For a few moments she casually touched herself. It could've gone worse, she mused, reflecting back on the night, on the destroyed room she'd left behind in the castle. Beast's Castle seemed like another chapter of someone else's life, in fact.

She lost herself in reflection for a time, pouring over the events of the previous night, and smiled. Everything seemed so--

It came suddenly as if it  _knew_ , as if it was waiting for that brief moment of relief. The pain was unimaginable, as if every cell in her body had sprouted needles. Worst of all her abdomen, which thrashed with frustration--through horrified tear-stained eyes Xion could  _see it_  through her own skin beneath her dark fabric, these knots of tentacles--and she stumbled, unseeing, unhearing, nothing but pain, and fell onto something.

The vile seed burst from both ends of her body, wet, lukewarm. Horrible. She blinked. Wiped her eyes. She was in an alley near the hideout. Something grey oozed out from beneath her. Xion stepped out in with her boot, as if it would make any difference. The things inside of her pressed against her body warningly, threateningly.

And then, at the end of the alley, Olette.

"Are you okay?"

Xion blinked. Sniffed. This was a kind of trick, certainly. Olette had understood from the beginning. She knew what she was.

"Should I, um," Olette glanced back, "should I call someone? Pence noticed you were gone and he got worried. I'm worried too, actually. Where do you live? Could I take you there?"

Xion shook her head.

"Then come back inside. We can talk about it. I can get you some water."

"Water," Xion repeated.

"Yeah, why don't you--"

Xion wiped something grey from her chin and laughed. "Are you making fun of me?"

"What?"

"I can see it in your eyes. You're a real kidder, aren't you, Olette? You should be running away right about now."

Olette flinched. "You need help, don't you?"

"No," said Xion. "Probably. I don't really know these days. But  _you_  need help. 'Cause otherwise I'll getcha. And you know what happens if I getcha?"

Olette took a step back.

"You'll get to go to heaven. I don't think you'll like it there."

"I," Olette stammered. "I don't understand what you...what you..."

The tentacles slid out from Xion's body into the open air of Twilight Town. Xion looked up at Olette, lips tight, showing a sharp white-toothed smile. "You're going to run far away," said Xion. Her tentacles twitched. "You're going to tell Hayner and Pence...oh, I don't care what you tell them, actually. You can tell them that I'm a monster, which I am. Or you can tell them that I ran away, which I did. It doesn't make any difference to me. Just do it quick before I get any hornier."

Xion's tentacles dripped something thick, foggy, filmy. Olette's hand went to her mouth. She didn't scream, unfortunately. That would've been lovely, Xion thought. Really bring it home. Really sell it.

And then Olette said "I'm so sorry," and ran away.

It was offensive, almost. Xion imagined grabbing Olette by the head, pulling her back and making her an Uplifted then and there.  _I'm sorry_. For what? Why? Did humans just apologize all the time for nothing? It made her sick.

God, she felt so sick.

In the early morning--or late, late night, who knew?--of Twilight Town, the inhuman thing called Xion trudged through alleys towards the woods, towards DiZ and Riku and Namine. Her eyes watered. It was from the little bout of sickness in the alley, you see. It must've broken something. Her eyes kept watering and she kept sniffling, and she kept thinking of the way Hayner, Pence, and Olette had smiled and laughed and touched her so sweetly all over.

 _It's all sickness_ , thought Xion, and walked on.

* * *

 

"I've seen the smoking remains of worlds," DiZ boomed, and Riku thought  _oh fuck here we go again_.

It wasn't about Axel. Axel was just sort of in the cross-fire of the whole thing, a red-headed douche that Namine insisted "was changed, somehow" in that way that was immediately persuasive no matter what Riku did. Axel was collateral mercy. It was about Kairi, who wasn't supposed to be involved in all of this, who was innocent, who was...who was  _Kairi_. It wasn't right that she kept getting swept up in these nightmares.

Kairi, who had--and Riku could still scarcely believe it--had seen his home drop out of the sky again into darkness and disappear.

Again.

That image clenched his fists. That vision sent them flying into Axel's body again and again and it wouldn't go away, he kept punching and it would not  _stop_.

It wasn't for home. Not really. It had never been home for Riku, because Riku had hated his home and most of the idiots who lived there. His parents he hated most of all. But  **he**  had loved it, and Kairi had loved it, and that meant every twinkling world in the sky.

All for nothing.

And now  _this_ motherfucker.

"I've seen the smoking remains of worlds," DiZ boomed again, because he liked booming. "Wastelands in the wake of the walking plague, the Nobody. And you wish to free one of these humanoid locusts and give them free reign in our sanctum?" He chortled. He  _chortled._  Riku had never heard a chortle before, and it was exactly as obnoxious as he had suspected.

Riku had thought of DiZ as a wise man once. Maybe if he was more desperate, maybe if he didn't have Namine with him now...maybe he would've made that same mistake.

"This whole world would burn in days," said DiZ. "No. I refuse."

"You can't," said Namine. She stepped out from behind Riku now--the pair stood in the mansion den, glaring across the ruined table at DiZ. "If Axel's right, you don't have time. Kairi agrees."

"Kairi is borderline catatonic, Namine. And the empathy you feel towards her is biological; it overrides your meager mental faculties. She is a pawn of the Nobody now."

"How dare you," Riku snarled, heart reaching for a blade, stepping forward--stepping into Namine's outstretched arm. She shook her head.

"You don't think a Princess of Heart is that weak, DiZ, do you?" Namine's voice was soft, nervous. She was not shaking. "Do you think she would lie? Do you really think she's capable of that?"

"If she's been lied to, yes."

"A lot of leaps you're making, aren't you?"

"Namine."

"She's right. I know Kairi. She's strong. If she says that Axel is telling the truth, then Axel is telling the truth. I think you know that, DiZ."

"Do you?"

 _Does he ever stop?_ Riku thought. "If you don't know it, then you don't know what you're talking about and I'm wasting my time working with you."

DiZ smiled. "Fine, then. Riku, you may go let them out. We have plenty of space here. Perhaps we could host a whole menagerie of Nobodies. Give them their own rooms. I don't care which--put them on the manor proper or give them rooms in the adjacent buildings."

Namine smirked, gave Riku's arm a squeeze, and he tried to will himself not to go flower-petal pink.

"Let's go, then. Thank you, Master, you don--"

"I was addressing Riku, Namine. Not you. Speak with me for a moment."

Namine winced. "Is there something wrong?"

"Riku," DiZ snapped. "Leave. We have private business here."

Riku glanced helplessly from DiZ to Namine and back. "I--is everything?--"

"Leave  _now_  or I may change my mind about the Nobody and your princess."

Riku's heart stretched out for his Soul Eater sword...and he bit that hunger back. No. No, it was fine. He was just talking. DiZ was so full of  _talk_. "Alright," said Riku simply, and he started down the hallways of the mansion to the makeshift brig.

Riku activated the stairway in the eastern room, listened to the hiss of the mechanical stairway shifting the floor, lowering into the depths. He thought about Maleficent. He thought about being young and ordered by people who seemed to know what they were doing. About being told not to ask any inconvenient questions.

He thought about it. He thought about Namine being alone with DiZ. He thought about the way she looked away when DiZ spoke and remembered that there was no one here in the white hallways beneath the mansion to stop him from summoning his sword and tearing into the walls.

So he did.

Arms ached. Sword chipped. He did, though.

It only felt good for a few seconds. Then his arm ached, and he was alone. No one but him and a chipped wall.

* * *

 

Creaking of a house checked into hospice. Namine touching the broken table, averting her eyes.

DiZ spoke first, of course. "I suppose it felt good."

"What did?" said Namine automatically, already knowing what he would say.

"You took him. Riku. You seduced him. Am I wrong?"

Namine shook her head.

"Don't feign repentance. This is hardly a surprise to me. You are, after all, nothing but body."

"I know." It had taken so much energy to stick up to DiZ for Kairi and for...for the other one, the one Namine wasn't sure about. And DiZ, he was  _DiZ_. Saved her from Castle Oblivion. Knew more about the worlds than her or Riku.

"Bodies," DiZ continued, "have desires. I cannot fault you for your nature. But I did warn you not to interfere with Riku. He is under my protection."

"I wasn't going to hurt him. I--"

"Is that empathy I see? Of course not. Nothing but a phantom of a consciousness reacting to stimuli. Nothing but a philosophical zombie. You know this."

Namine shrunk a year. "I do. I know." There was some secret personhood he possessed, she knew. Namine would never understand it because she could not feel it. If she did--if she had a heart--who could say what would happen? Perhaps she would want to get out of bed. Perhaps she would want to seize the day, would stop having stretches of numbnesses. No more nightmares either. Somebodies never had nightmares. That seemed certain.

"Opening your repulsive, animal legs to him. Enticing him." DiZ walked to her. Loomed over her. "I should have been better. I should have protected Riku from your corruptions. I know what you  _are_. I understand you like no one else does. Enticing him. Enticing Sora. And before that, enticing for the Nobody, M--"

"Don't say his name please don't say his name"

"I won't if you stop feigning emotion that we  _both know_ you do not possess. I have no time for games."

"please I didn't w"

"Marluxia."

"DiZ Ansem I"

"Stop. Playing.  _Games_." He slammed his fist on the broken table.

"Please."  _I know where the food is I prepare it every morning I know where poison is too in the garden I could I could you know I could_  and she wouldn't and knew she wouldn't wanted to thought of it could do it but even if Riku never foudn out she didnt want to kill anyone must be the nerves making up her corrupted flesh didnt want to hurt anybody ever no

"Do you think the Organization will spare you in this mission of yours?" He grabbed her by the chin. "Do you?"

"They're dead," said Namine. Bubbles of snot. Miserable past caring.

"They're dead," DiZ repeated. "Still they're dead. Interesting."

"They are."

"Indeed. You will cease to see Riku," said DiZ, suddenly letting go of her. "You will cease to speak to Riku. You will cease to look at him. You will exist only for your reunion with Sora, and then you will be forgotten."

"Don't do this."

"Why? You don't think you would be better forgotten?" DiZ shook his head. "You've already removed yourself from Sora, Donald, and Goofy's memories, and rightly so considering the damage you caused. You need not use magic to remove yourself from Riku's memory; he knows you aren't human. I doubt he would share his bed with any true human outside of Kairi. And all others, they see you as nothing more than a tool. You will disappear and cause no pain. Like the other one, Xion, you are not even a Nobody. Like Xion, your ending will cause great joy to all around you. If any primitive, genetic empathy lies in your husk, let it bubble up from the walking illness that is  _you_ and leave him as soon you can."

Namine stared at the floor.

"Or do you not care for him?"

"I do."

"Then do as I say."

"Yes."

"Yes," repeated DiZ. "Good girl. Now leave me."

Namine left him. DiZ watched her run away up the stairs, splashing tears on the broken ground and dirty carpets.

He laughed softly, impressed. "Such realism."


	12. A Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kairi dares someone. Riku picks up an old friend. Xion takes a walk in the forest. Namine feels something.

 

Kairi sat in the whiteness, legs folded, gazing across to Axel. She felt like a creaking collection of bones in a pale-white sack of skin, empty...and staring with fire. Pale fire, blue. A supernova girl blazing with the end of a world.

Axel matched that intensity. Leaned into it with savage forest eyes, smirking, eager for an answer.

Two stone faces. Redheads in flowing black and casual pink.

Axel grinned. "Well? I'm waiting."

"Are you, now."

"There's nothing else to do but wait, kid."

Kairi smirked. "Are you going to stop calling me that?"

Axel shrugged. "Nope. You crack me up when you get mad."

"Figured."

"So give me your answer."

Kairi took a deep breath. Leaned in.

"Dare."

"Dare? Here? I just figured--" Axel sputtered "--there's nothing to _do_ here. It's a blank white prison void, you know?"

Yeah, she knew.

"I? I don't?" More satisfying sputters.

"I win, then," said Kairi, and then--

"Strip."

Kairi blinked. "You can't be serious."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah." She wasn't.

Axel winked. "Had you going, didn't I? Okay, fine. Don't strip yet. I bet you'll get there soon enough, I know what they say about redheads."

Kairi tried not to smile. "I bet you do."

"Solidarity forever."

"You know it." God, she still felt like bones clattering and stretching into the vague shape of a person, but it was _fun_ to talk to him. Part of it was surely because anything was better than the nightmares every night, than seeing Selphie in them, than feeling like a record on repeat. But this Nobody here, when she snarked at him he threw her comments right back. Rubber and glue, coming back to stick to her, and that was weirdly okay. It made her feel something, and she _needed_ to feel something. Feel nothing and fall back into the moment days or hours ago when--

\--when--

_Not now not now you're busy don't think about her and her touch and everything that was wrong with her and everything that was right with her and_

"Okay," said Axel. He looked at her oddly now. "I guess," and he stumbled for a second, like he wanted to say something else. "I, uh, dare you to tell me a truth."

"You cheating fuck."

Axel grinned. No, it must've been all in her head. "What, me? Cheat? Never. Here's my truth-dare. Apologies in advance, by the way, because it skirts painfully close to being serious. Which I'm against, as a rule."

"Truth? You really want to--" Kairi took a long, deep breath. In. Hold. Feel it tickling your insides. Slowly vent out. Good. "Alright. Lay it on me."

"You okay?"

Kairi winced. "What?"

"You been through a lot, and now you're stuck here in..." Axel waved vaguely at their surroundings. "...here. Your boyfriend beat the shit out of me and didn't bother to set you free after. Are. You. Okay?"

"Why do you care?" Kairi snapped. All the moments of small talk, all the jokes and smirks--sure, it was satisfying in a way, but they were all with something inhuman. A Nobody, that strange girl Namine had called him. She'd let down her guard because he seemed so harmless, and here he was turning a game into an interrogation. Getting under her skin.

All of these things that looked human. The boy, the blonde boy, the one who looked almost like--like _someone_. The hordes in the streets. Neighbors, friends. A lover turned strange. A violation in the showers that made her mouth turn dry.

It was too much to bear.

"You're not okay," said Axel quietly. "Sorry."

"Why do you care?" Kairi repeated.

"I don't," he said, a little too quickly. "Consider it professional curiosity. We'll be spending a lot of time together. I'd prefer you be feeling your best. Otherwise it's going to be rough on me."

Fake little shit. Black clothes, red hair, black heart. "You really feel that way? How could you say something like that?"

Axel cackled. "I don't really _'feel'_ any way," he snapped. "You heard Namine, didn't you? Forget I asked any of it. Speaking of the witch, I think we've got another visitor coming up. Let's look sharp, huh?"

Kairi didn't bother to stand up straight, to look at the door, to fix her hair. There was a dryness inside of her these days. All the water and energy washed away to fill it and nothing came back. She lived as a pit and relished being exhausted enough to sleep, to dream perhaps of being somewhere else with other people. Some dead, some living, friends and lovers.

Kairi didn't budge when the door whirred open, but she jumped to her feet when she saw him.

Through the fog of memories, through the distance of where they were now so far from home, through all of it--it was him, _Riku_ , and that fact flared bright inside of her, scorched circumstance into nothing. That sensation of being bones in skin faded--she was herself again for now, herself but younger.

Racing through the whiteness beneath the rotting mansion like she was running through the sand on a beach. Racing to the awkward silver-haired boy, the one trying to pass off wiping his eyes as flicking a flea, scratching an itch, anything but tears.

It was him.

Really.

And finally.

One hundred and twenty-seven pounds of weeping Kairi slammed into Riku, burying her head in his chest, laughing or crying or no, something in-between.

Riku, ever the guy, gave the requisite second of resistance before happily killing it, giving in, wrapping his arms around her, rubbing his face against her head below him. She smelled different. Changed of shampoo. Why did he notice that, of all things? He wondered how much she noticed about him, the way he smelled, the way he looked...and then recalled that he was wearing a dark cloak, had even longer hair than before, and reeked of cosmic darkness.

She probably noticed a lot of things, actually?

"I wasn't sure you were real," Kairi whispered into his chest.

"What do you mean?" Riku whispered into her red hair.

Kairi paused, uncertain. She remembered a VHS. SerpentOrb X. A cartoon they'd watched together, her and Riku and...maybe somebody-or-other. Someone important. Sleepover night, one of many. Riku, just a few years ago, and they'd been so young, and they'd been so different. Playing games where they had kung fu battles in space, blowing clothes off with energy waves, and slinking off to their own sleeping bags when the realization and shame came. None of that had seemed real either. No one talked about it. It may as well not have happened.

"I don't know what I mean," Kairi laughed. "Nothing looks like it is anymore."

"That's fine," said Riku. He thought about Neverland, about the slightly-breathing doll that was Kairi lying on the deck of Hook's ship. An empty mockery of her.

"There was so much fog." SerpentOrb X, which the boys had chose because she was outnumbered even though she'd wanted Captain Luna. But which boys? The fog swallowed so much, there was only one of them.... "Riku," she said, voice tight.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," said Kairi.

"What?" Had he done something wrong? Was it this whole mess around them, DiZ and the Organization lurking, making it impossible to talk?

"Riku," said Kairi simply. "It's you. That's all. I just wanted to say your name. I...I kinda missed it."

"Kairi."

Kairi opened her mouth and her heart spoke through it. The name escaped her and she heard only static, only buzzing flies. _There was another boy,_ she thought, _and I said his name. I love him dearly, just as I love Riku, and I can't even find him inside of me._

She nearly screamed.

"I miss him too," said Riku. "But--"

"--but we're done with this," Axel snapped, "and I'd like to get to the point. Why are you here? What do you want with me? Is this a conjugal visit?" Axel tossed his hair, smiled mockingly. "I'll wait my turn."

Riku turned to ice. Even her hands around him felt something cold; her flesh grasped ice.

He spoke stiltedly. "I'm supposed to show you two to your rooms here. Real rooms, not like this. I wish we could leave _him_ here."

"You two know I heard that, right?"

Riku rolled his eyes. "Obviously. Kairi, has he been like this the whole time?"

"On and off."

He groaned. "I don't know why Namine vouched for him too."

"I'm just glad she came through for me."

"I am too." It was an odd look on Riku's face now. Mixed, complicated, embarrassed, ever-so-slightly terrified. Why?

This girl, this Namine, had come down to see the two of them several times now. Axel knew her. Kairi did not, but felt a strange connection to her all the while.

Namine unnerved her. She talked on and on about Nobodies and apologized about this, and glanced so often at the floor. When she walked into a room she carried with her vanilla and white chocolate, and beneath it something that Kairi could not trace. Something scentless.

"Orders are orders," said Riku with a sigh. "Alright, you two. You've got proper rooms in the mansion now. Don't cause too much trouble. You're going to get some Munny to decorate, but don't cause trouble in Twilight Town. Don't give me that look, Nobody. What, do you think you were any better with the Organization?"

In the whiteness, still sitting, Axel looked up at the two of them. "That's a very good question," said Axel. "I know you don't think I am," he added. "I _know_ that you're trying to be clever. But, I mean, you know what? Organization XIII had, at its peak--well, you can do math, can't you? Firepower. We had firepower. And I had--" another momentary pause "--something else to really drive me. Here? What do you got here? White space and existential angst. We had tons of both back at the Castle, and **everybody fucking** _ **died.**_ "

"Are you done?" said Riku.

"For now, sure." Axel sneered.

"Good. Took you long enough. Alright, you two. Let's go."

~~~

Xion stumbled through the broken wall out of Twilight Town proper and into the woods. Her chest shook hard enough to make her imagine an avalanche of heart attacks, one after another, threatening to fall with every new step. How did heart attacks work, if you barely resembled human anymore? If you didn't have a heart? How did--

\--and her inside stirred again, impatient. She rambled through the forest on the outskirts, exploding with pain on the inside, ribcage and lungs and stomach. Slithering. Begging. She fell against an insignificant tree and shuddered.

Glanced around, sweating. Biting her lip.

And she began to touch herself. The branches above her loomed. They shook in some imagined wind. Xion let her tentacles sprout from her abdomen, slowly, peeking. Splaying out over the earth at once, gushing pink-pale liquid. Twitching. Convulsing. She stroked two of them with either hand, a third tentacle diving beneath her soaked panties to flick her clit and then penetrate her.

Xion separated herself from the slime of the tentacles in her fingers, from the slick sensation of getting fucked by what she knew, distantly, was her own body. She drifted into the black branches spreading across the orange sky like lightning. If she pulled herself far enough away from her body she could convince herself, turned everything into enough of an abstraction, perhaps she could tell herself that the fire inside was another bolt of black-branch lightning.

It wasn't. She licked her lips, found herself missing this feeling. Human cocks, human pussies, they were really something. But she could do so much to herself, too. Two tentacles spread out wide from her skirt now, a third, a fourth.

A wild image came to her. The wildness ran through her limbs, a full-body shudder of fear as much as anticipation. It was too perfect, too beautiful.

Her tentacles, save the one inside of her, dug into the dirt and she felt them, felt the grains and pebbles around them. One of them shook itself off and stroked her chin, trailing wetness. She touched her tongue to it and giggled at the absurdity of it all. The giggle ran through her too, joined the wildness, made it unstoppable.

The tentacles slid up now, between her skin and her clothing. They trailed past her soaking pussy, being worked now by two, by three now. They ran up a useless navel for an unborn Replica, up two heaving breasts molded in the image of another girl entirely. They paused to play with her nipples--no, she paused to play with her own nipples, to wrap around them, warm and slick as she worked herself.

She rested her head against the tree and let the limbs frigging herself pull back to work her clit, one on each side, alternating between soft and hard. This new body, this new mind, couldn't be overwhelmed by pleasure. So many new things to learn without someone looking over her shoulder.. Xion always would have just enough control to bring things one step further.

Xion's tentacles spread out now over her body--chest, stomach, arms, legs--everywhere, in between clothing and skin.

It would have to be perfect. She would need to _feel_ it.

Waves of pleasure licked at her clit, began to spread across her body. The hungry fucksticks stroking it blazed with their own need. She slid one inside of her and gasped; she could feel it coming now, in her pussy and her new limbs, two pleasures and so different combining into one unstoppable fireball.

The fire came.

It burst inside of her, hot warm wet clenching against herself existing as every single moment, fully in control, relishing it. The tentacles beneath her clothing twisted, thrust, ripped her clothes to small dark shreds.

Wetness, explosion, fluids. Shreds of clothing drifting through the dark trees. Dead leaves.

Grass and flowers drank the fluid of her tentacles, grew massive within seconds, shriveled within minutes around her. She paid no mind. It was the climax of a long joke that had been building since she met Hayner, Pence, and Olette.

She wasn't human and never had been. If Roxas was the ghost of Sora, Xion was removed enough from personhood that she needn't bother at all with these constructs. No identity, no choice. No gender, really, because Xion had only picked female after some flare of magic had decided that Roxas preferred it. She--they--or she, for now, because it was easier--had no particular attachment to it.

The ecstasy was fading now. Xion lay nude in the forest, feeling nothing.

"Please," she whispered in the forest, begging for some answer to split the brushes and offer a hand. Take her to a cozy cottage where she could heal from the horrors, wake up in the morning, find herself both useful and loved. But then, only good people were gifted with coincidence. Miracles were for heroes. Heroes like Sora. For him, convenient potential pals stepped out from the shadows with their own easily-resolved subplots. And then--all for one, one for all--Sora would slash the problem to pieces and go forth. For great justice.

"Please," she said again, not expecting an answer now. But Xion was tired now, her tentacles--and they were truly hers now, just as much as her hands were, and she could do nothing to stop that--her own tentacles wrapped around her body like a comforter, soft, lukewarm. One after another. So tight, getting warmer.

She slept for only an hour or two, dreamed of fucking, and softly wept when she woke.

Her tear ducts did not operate.

Tears were inefficient for Uplifted.

~

Namine clung to Riku. The last few hours were little more than a bad dream now, in the bed that she thought of not as hers but as _theirs_. An odd change that she hadn't even noticed at first, but now? She couldn't stop thinking about it. Didn't want to, for that matter.

A couple of hours ago, things had been rough. She'd been lying in bed by herself, seething, fretting, crying. Obsessing over DiZ's words, wondering how she'd end all of this with Riku, which would obviously be for the best. Feeling just like the crumpled doll the Organization had dressed her to be. Odd thinking about that few-hours girl here and now as Namine wrapped her arms around his waist possessively, nuzzling his neck. A couple of hours could have been a couple of years; that girl was almost a stranger now.

DiZ had said so much to hurt that girl.

In the forever sunset of Twilight Town, bathing in the orange light, Namine had dug her fingers under her white panties and slowly dragged them back and forth across her clit. Slowly back and forth. Savoring it.

At this point it was not sexual but religious, the product of over a year of ritual. A sacred moment her own chamber, where she could be herself and as many others as she needed to be. (She was very good with her fingers.) She could entertain fantasies here if she so desired, or she could run through her memories of lovemaking with Riku. So many options.

And every day that DiZ lectured her had made more options seem wrong; every lecture had made the sacred moments in her room feel more like a sin.

There used to be so many lusts she entertained. The first--a lust that sowed the seeds of her religion--was a vision of Sora back during Castle Oblivion, surrounded by white flowers and black cloaks. Between cruel barbs, assurances of their moral rightness, and Marluxia, Namine had sifted through Sora's memories. Fell in love with him for herself, not the Organization. ( _Something like love, that is._ )

Namine watched him carve through the floors of Castle Oblivion, linking memory to memory, scribbling, and...and the chair. Odd moods came to her and she would rock back and forth in that chair--the beginning of it all--reaching out with the empty place inside of her, feeling gross but addicted. She began rubbing herself desperately against her panties and then let them drop, longing for Sora to throw open the door just then, seeing her wetness dribble onto the chair, dripping down to the floor. And then he would...well, she didn't know what he would do, but she imagined it would be wonderful and strange.

After Castle Oblivion had come more understanding, more shame, more lusts. Namine read up on the sexuality of Somebodies, and DiZ explained the unnatural aspect of Nobody lust, among all of their other perversions of good, natural emotions. DiZ, who had saved her and Riku. DiZ, who would die of horror if he knew Namine's fantasies. Riku, who Namine was to protect from others and herself.

Some nights, Namine's fantasies were not lusty at all. Some nights they were all marble corridors and knights in armor. Intricate adventures and courtly dramas, with backstabbing princesses and snarling kings. Other nights, though...other nights were wild.

Namine touched herself like she did every night and felt nothing but the barest physical response. She thought about breaking the toys out from under her bed, decided against it. So much effort to clean and recharge and generally fuss over. _And anyway_ \--the thought she'd been holding back all this time broke free and trampled over the rest of them-- _all of this proves that you're just as disgusting as he says you are._

Namine buried her head in her pillow.

 _He's out with Kairi now. The real girl. Not_ you _. Do you think he'll bother coming back now to that margarine body of yours after his sweet tongue tastes butter?_ With every word, the voice in her head sounded more like Marluxia. He might have been hovering over her now, leering over his conquest again as he always had, every night, every night.

_You should do him a favor and be cruel when he comes here. Cruel to be kind. Unless you want to really milk that last moment where he could love you. In that case, the window is right here. If you go headfirst, I bet you could get away with it from the second story. Then you'll get that last moment when he sees you in the courtyard and whispers your name. Screams it to the sky. The sky won't change. In the end, he won't either. But it'll probably be the most he feels about you._

Horrible thoughts horrible she didn't want to die, not really, but all anyone talked about was how she _should_ die and it never stopped ever not ever at all to the point where she couldn't tell the difference between her own desires and theirs.

Riku knocked.

Namine debated.

"Hey. You awake?"

 _You should let him leave you here._ DiZ now. _Push across the water, starting now. Drift away till all is well. You will become a solved algebra problem. From one side of the equal sign to another._

"Yeah," she said. Surprising herself. Why had she done that? It would've been so much easier not to say anything.

"Mind if I come in?"

"Um," said Namine. _Don't come in._ "I'm not feeling well."

Riku laughed darkly. "That makes two of us. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah. Don't leave me alone," she said, and her voice managed not to crack, thank Kingdom Hearts.

The door creaked open. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay." _I'm not okay, I promise_ , she thought, remembering a dumb song she'd caught Axel listening to back in Castle Oblivion. She couldn't stop herself from laughing.

"Good," said Riku, laughing too now, "you had me worried." Footsteps towards the bed. Clack, clack, clack. Right beside her now.

The tears were dry enough to hide. Namine sat up, turned to face Riku. The endorphins hit. Her body insisted that she should be happy to see the face of her lover. Her lips smiled. Sham emotions. "You're not feeling good?"

"No," said Riku. "Axel is an _asshole_."

"That rhymes," said Namine, unable to stop herself. "But, I mean, yes. He's a Nobody. What did you expect?"

"You're a Nobody," said Riku immediately. Endorphins again. "I expected something better."

 _I don't know why_. "What did he do?"

Quite a lot, it turned out. Riku spent the next five minutes elaborating on every single bizarre or obnoxious thing that Axel said as he conducted the shopping parade from store to store in Twilight Town. And there were a lot of stops on that parade, too. Furniture, vacuums, books.

Riku spat the word _books_.

"What's wrong with books?"

"Nothing," said Riku. "But he got, like, two normal books before just dumping some porn in his shopping basket. In public."

"That's not that big a--"

"No, I don't think you understand. I mean, like, a _lot_ of porn. Really old porn. Really new porn. Somehow he found some, uh, tentacle incest mind control scat porn in a Barnes and Noble."

Namine whistled. "Wow."

"Yeah, I'm almost impressed. DiZ ended up paying for it all, too."

"Oh." _Disgusting Nobodies, perverts, monsters_. "I'm sorry." She scratched her thigh now. Deep. Red. Good. Riku didn't notice. "How about Kairi? Was Kairi nice?"

"Yeah," said Riku immediately. "She seemed so happy to see me. I mean, she wasn't _happy_ happy _._ I don't know how she could be, with what she saw back home, with Selphie and everything. What happened to my islands _again._ " He laughed darkly. "At least it wasn't my fault this time. But, um, I think she'll pull through. Maybe Sora will too, and we can all be back together."

 _And I'll be dead,_ she thought, which wasn't true. All that would happen, as far as she knew, was that everything that made up her mind would be vacuumed up into two people, one of whom she had never met, and she would apparently exist within both of them. Fairy tale ending, that.

"All three of you, happily ever after."

"Namine?"

Namine turned, unable to look at him now.

"Please tell me if you're really okay," said Riku. So gently he rested his hand on her side and she wanted to scream at him, wanted to tear him lose, wanted to tell him to leave before she tore him to shreds with her teeth like the animal she was, had always been, would always be. DiZ and Marluxia sang out from inside of her.

Namine squirmed, blinked away the biological response of tears, stared at the wall. "I don't," she said, and coughed, or sobbed.

And Riku, the bastard, the absolute pathetic twat that he was, had the audacity to say: "Do you want to talk about it?"

Namine turned her fucking head and stared him in the fucking eyes. Her lips fucking twitched. _Look at him_ , she fucking thought, _pretending to care about you. It's because you're easy. It's because you're a whore. You're all whores, every one of you. You're all broken, and the only reason that anyone would ever pay you any fucking mind is because they know you'll drop your panties at a moment's notice. Somebodies wouldn't. Normal, decent human beings wouldn't. Just you. Vile._

She felt those fucking words inside of her and inexplicably thought about cancer, thought about surgery. Riku's eyes were blue and all-encompassing. Colder than Sora's. More intense. Flecked with textures that Kairi's eyes did not possess. "DiZ talked to me today," said Namine, "and--" and, and, and.

The dam burst. The other side, the other story of the evening burst out. Namine played the typewriter as she recited it, utterly neutral, uninvolved. Riku turned shades of red that Namine did not have a word for.

"He," said Riku. He also breathed deeply. This was a biological response, Namine knew, but as a Somebody his were more real than hers. Riku gulped. Namine watched him fail to calm himself but appreciated the effort. "Has he been like this the whole time?"

 _Yes_. "What do you mean?" she said instead, like an idiot because she was stupid and broken and empty and

"Putting you down, telling you you're nothing. Not that--" Riku snarled, leapt up from the bed. Wham. Ah this clearly was the moment he leapt up right into the fact that she was fucking _nothing_ in a mystical, cosmological sense. Laugh it up, now. Hilarious. Now he gets the joke and walks from the room to somewhere else. He's sown his spunk right up in that sweet cooch basically a sex toy like the ones under her bed and now he knows better. Smarter than he looks. Nothing. Fucking nothing, sticking your cock in nothing, spending trolley rides with nothing, holding hands with nothing, posing for photographs for nothing, laughing at dumb videos for nothing, crying together over memories with nothing, fucking nothing, holding and grasping at nothing, nothing in flowerbeds and nothing in bedsheets, nothing drawing pictures and nothing admiring them, and naturally nothing would come of nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing

nothing

he had stood up for a moment enraged before sitting down again and the two of them were simply there sinfully exhausted in a shitty white room that was not nearly as pristine as PlayStation 2 graphics might show, in a shitty broken house that smelled worse than you might expect, both of them extremely tired and

and Namine marveled at her own audacity as she dared to touch his hand after making it very very clear to him that she wasn't human and it was better to fuck and abandon her

and wouldn’t you believe it

the hand was warm

and wouldn’t you believe of all things that

the hand gripped back

and

and .

"I don't care anymore," said Riku.

"You should."

"I mean, I don't care what he says. You--can I--?" Riku's hand, warm on her cheek, ran down her neck, down to her chest. Namine nodded. He gripped her left breast. "Okay. That's what I thought."

"You're imagining it. I've touched it too. There's...." Biting her lip. "nothing."

Riku stared down at her. "Namine. You can feel my hand, can't you?" Softly, he gripped her breast.

"My body can," she said.

"Then you can feel it," said Riku. He took her hand in his, guided it up her chest, pressed it against herself, "and that's all there is to any of this."

And--

\--was that it?

had she felt it right there, her hand in his? was she trembling or was that a heartbeat?

and how could she know?

and

and why would it matter?

"You're right," said Namine, gazing up at him. Inhabiting her body. "I can feel it."

For a time they felt it, and that was all.

And when that moment and the room trembled with them...then they made love. Privately.

In the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait here. I've had a lot going on recently, professionally and otherwise, so that's part of it. The other part is that despite caring deeply about this story, I'm also having a few issues working on it. I'll put my cards on the table here: there's supposed to be a sexy scene of some kind in every chapter, and I'm starting to struggle with that.
> 
> I tried to be one chapter ahead of this and have a buffer, but posting this buffer seemed a little like admitting defeat. I've got more written but nothing finished, so here's hoping I can get something done.
> 
> This story is important to me. The fact that YOU enjoy this story is important to me. I don't want to let you down.


	13. Early Morning Mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning patrol finally pays off for Riku. Kairi confides in a fellow redhead. Axel gets hot under the collar, over the collar, generally hot all around. Finally--at last--Xion crashes the party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has no smut! you have been warned!

Early morning felt right in Twilight Town. The time matched the ever-ambiguous sky. It _clicked_ satisfactorily for Riku, who in the early morning pulled himself away from his lover to check the grounds around the mansion. This was the ritual DiZ had set him on, and he clung to it loyally despite never finding anything out of the ordinary. That was, after all, the _meaning_ of "out of the ordinary," wasn't it? Of course you'd see the ordinary most of the time. But you just wait, boy, till the enemy finds us.

Perhaps that was just the empty rhetoric of a bitter, paranoid old man? Riku wondered, now.

Plenty of time to wonder while wandering the grounds of the mansion, and plenty to wonder about. He wondered at times who had lived there before (he had not been told). Over time he'd collected a little diary of observations on who they might've been, what they might've done. Maybe he would show Kairi now that she was back. Kairi had always been the one who loved novels--maybe she could sort all this information, all of which overwhelmed Riku, set his leg bouncing under a desk.

Riku wondered what the people of the town thought of the mansion (he had not asked, to avoid suspicion). He had heard that it was haunted, and at times childishly hoped that people told ghost stories about the boy in black who wandered the courtyard in the morning. Black to protect him from the stain of the worlds, and it was never enough. Never.

Riku wondered if he would ever be free of this thing, this Ansem gnawing at his heart (save a miracle, probably not). Ansem hadn't stirred in a long time, now, and Riku wondered what that meant. Nothing good, probably, but what could he do? Only DiZ knew. Skeleton key of an old, miserable bastard. Rusty and vicious but you couldn't throw him away.

Riku wondered, finally, if he would ever see sweet, kind Sora again. Wondered how he would look with the memories and body torn away and, carefully, after a year or more of work, placed back. Wondered--wondered faster now, mind racing--wondered if his voice would be the same, if his smile would be the same, his dark summer tan the same, the skin of his shoulder under his hand--

Too many daydreams. Meniality bred so many of them.

That morning, though, he daydreamed most of the night before. Not of the sex--he had dreamed so much of sex over the past few years that those such fantasies didn't come as much, though the real thing was evergreen--but of the crook of Namine's neck, and the rightness of her curves. Even of her sudden bursts of hiccups, so high-pitched and cute that he simply had to tease her about them every now and then.

The idea that someone could hate this body of hers, could hate her, simply for how she came to be…that was obscene to Riku. He wondered--he really wondered, though he told himself that he was "only stressed"--about DiZ.

Perhaps there was one more daydream, and it had to with Riku's sword lodged in DiZ's neck.

But, of course, that would be murder, and Riku was a good person now who would never, ever give into dark actions. Because that would be wrong. Probably would be very Ansemly, which would also be wrong.

Most importantly, Namine would be _exceedingly_ cross if he did a murder.

Riku stood at the edge of the courtyard now, staring out into the forest beyond, definitely not contemplating homicide. Maybe this time he would see whatever kids spread all the ghost stories. Maybe this time he would see anything but the dark trees that shivered in the faint breeze, skeletal and black in the twilight. Maybe this time things would be out of the ordinary.

But they were not, and Riku turned to get on with his day.

And for a moment

\--there the angel glistening with sweat in the early sunlight--

\--for a moment he thought it was Namine there, naked in the courtyard of the mansion. The familiar curve of her thigh. Daydreams living, walking away from him to the door of the mansion.

But no, impossible--no golden locks draped over shoulders but black and short; and no, this girl must've been younger than Namine by a year--why had it seemed so much like her?

And as she turned, Riku understood.

Xion, emissary of the things that name themselves Uplifted, stared at him. Yellow eyes, cold as moonlight. Sliding from--an icicle shot through Riku's mind--from the lips of her vagina, three dark tentacles that rose behind her like three scorpion tails.

"Xion," said Riku. He swallowed, mind spinning. Hearing about the beasts was one thing. Seeing one wearing the face of a friend? Something else.

"Riku. How have you been?" So casual.

"Listen to me. I can't…I can't let you hurt anybody else." A burst of black fog around his hands; the blade he called Soul Eater came to him. "I'll save you from this."

Xion sighed. Her fingers twitched. A burst of light, a summoned keyblade. A stolen keyblade, thought Riku. "I've got no interest in fighting you, Riku. I'm here to talk. Maybe I can even help. How does that sound?"

"Lay down your weapon. Then we can talk."

Xion blinked. Her lip twitched. She burst out laughing. "Oh god, you were serious. Really? You really want to--you really think that I'm supposed to just throw this thing out? For _you?_ "

"Xion," said Riku. "Please. Lay down your weapon. Why not?"

"Because I'm a monster," said Xion matter-of-factly. "And you're a hero. And heroes think they can kill monsters whenever they want. Forgive me for assuming that you'll be what you are. More than that, you know what happened to your home. I'm sure you're still salty about that apocalypse."

"That wasn't you."

"Not the end of it, no. But I did plant a few seeds. Roxas just harvested them. Destiny Islands, in case you were wondering what I--"

"I wasn't," said Riku.

"How is he, by the way?"

"Axel couldn't kill him."

"You and I both know that he wouldn't have tried."

"So," said Riku.

"So," said Xion.

"You really do want to fight me?"

"I'm so tired," she said. "I don't want to fight anyone. As you can see, I'm not really dressed for all of this--" and she gestured down to her body "--but if you start something, I'll fight back."

"Then put down your weapon."

"No."

"Then I'm sorry."

"So am I."

They raised their weapons, stared at one another--blue eyes and yellow--and ran.

* * *

  
Wasn't it supposed to be over now? One of the two (two? no, there was just one. what else could there be? odd misfiring neurons) heroes had whisked Kairi away from the horror of it all. Took her back to comfy home, all sweet sunrises and walks down gentle town roads. Until Selphie. Until the creeping things, the harpoons, the horror.

And it was all supposed to have stopped. The endless destruction, the pain, the…

The death.

No point in dwelling no point in dwelling no point at all no point gotta move on gotta **move**.

So Kairi took a deep breath and grabbed the secondhand dresser she'd bought yesterday with both arms, huffing, waddling to the corner, almost dropping it. Her room here in the old mansion was beginning to take shape, in an "amateur playing _The Sims_ " sort of way. (And Kairi was exactly that sort of amateur, with no more than two expansions on her mom's old computer. Which had, by the way, been swallowed by darkness again. So.)

Great!

The world was over and Riku was spending every night with some strange girl, barely talking to her, and everything was just _fucking great_.

"Wow," said a voice. Kairi glanced up--oh, naturally. Axel. "I was gonna offer to help, but it looks like you've got it covered. Lucky me, eh?"

"Lucky you," said Kairi, too tired to argue, too bummed out to joke. She wanted Riku to be here. No, she didn't want either of them to be _here_ at all. She wanted her fucking islands back--sand between her toes, sunlight between waves. She wanted Selphie back--diabolical smiles, tingling whispers in her ear. She wanted--wanted Sora.  
Sora?

Now, that was an odd thought. Who was _that_?

Axel stretched his arms behind his head, cracked the bones of his neck. "I could _actually_ help you," he offered, glancing meaningfully at the furniture, the boxes, the shopping bags from the last couple days. "If you want, that is."

"Go crazy."

Miracle of miracles, Axel didn't waffle or play but proceeded to do some work for somebody else. He unpacked, moved furniture around, smiled while doing it. It pissed Kairi off, oddly--it was that way he glided between sweet and sneering--friendly at one moment, cold at the next, like the cold burst of air from an opening door. You never quite knew which Axel you ended up with.

Axel helped her unpack and set up. And Riku, he…must've been doing something important. He was always doing something important, Kairi knew. It was all he ever did. There was no time for her or anyone else outside of that strange girl, Namine. So many adventures out there in the great shining dark, all while Kairi and everyone else on the islands waited in ignorance to get eaten. But that was the way of the worlds, Kairi was beginning to understand now. There were the important people and everyone else. Kairi was just important enough not to end up like…the others. Torn apart. Humanity stolen. Or….

"We'll find somewhere with sunlight," Selphie had said, at the end. No doubt she'd meant something bright, something beautiful. Something so much better than this monument to dusk, this Twilight Town.

How long would they be here? Riku didn't have an answer. Why were they _here_ at all? No time to explain. Maybe later. Axel started some antics as they'd shopped. Kairi just wanted to talk to Riku. But he seemed so strange, so embarrassed, so…what was it? What had gotten into him?

But oddly, none of this was new. This was just Riku. No matter what Kairi or her friends dealt with, Riku would be there to help them. You know. Until it was inconvenient. Until he needed his own adventures. And she would text him and write him and cry into a goddamn pillow for him (and--and just him, naturally) and hear nothing until he came back, silver hair glistening all anime in the sunlight.

Then she'd be there for him because she was always there for him. Professional shoulder to cry on. Riku would talk about his (relatively mundane) adventures, and Kairi would gape and gasp and hug him because he needed that, needed so much always.

Sure, Kairi would have her own adventures. Girls religious camps, failed middle school sports, queen bees and wannabes strangling to death in their own drama. And to Riku's credit, he would nod and tell her that it was okay. But he did not seem to remember most of them a few weeks later.

Always running off to have his own adventures, always expecting her to be the captive audience. The redhead waving a handkerchief on a dock for him. Forever there, forever _available_. That's what he expected, and in the end? In the end he was right. She was waiting for the two of them to come back. Always waiting for him to come back.

"Axel?"

"Mm?" Axel looked the bookshelf up and down for some reason or another--Kairi suspected it was no reason at all, that he was just trying to figure out what to look at now that she was talking. Things had ended so oddly before.

"Thanks."

"It was nothing."

"Stop. You know it wasn't."

"I'm bored," said Axel. "It gave me something to do. Isn't that enough?"

Kairi crossed the room to him, looked up in his eyes--green of a grass snake--and shook her head. "You keep doing that thing where you pretend that you don't feel anything. Why is that?"

"We're born liars. Didn't the old man tell you?"

"He told me. I also don't trust him."

"So you're trusting me."

"Marginally more, yeah. I'm just saying, can you just talk to me without making it about this whole cosmic 'do I have emotions or not' bullshit? For just, I mean, one second? I need to _talk_ to somebody."

"Try Riku."

"I have. He's never available. Always with that one girl." _Face like a backwards mirror._

Axel stepped back. Folded his arms. "Alright. Say something."

"Everybody's dead," said Kairi, _sunlight somewhere with sunlight she promised sunlight mom tidus wakka everyone I_

"That's rough, buddy," said Axel. "You gonna do anything about it?"

Kairi's lips twitched. Her cheeks twitched, her face twitched. Everything convulsed. No answer to that, nothing at all. "I'll get them back."

Axel pressed a finger to his lip thoughtfully. "You will?"

"I'll tear them to pieces."

"If you manage that," said Axel, "then let me know how it goes."

"You don't know what it's like--"

Axel vanished as the floor exploded with flame and then reappeared, bursting from the carpet, incinerating, dark red hair and bloodless white face. Kairi stumbled. He loomed.

"Oh, you think I don't know what it's like?" he said, smiling, almost laughing, just as unreadable as he always was when he was like this. "You think I've never seen worlds die? Worlds live? I've never woken up in the morning and seen that things'll never be the same? That I've never lost people I loved?"

He stalked back and forth now across the furniture, long-legged, sharp-toothed, hair prickling back like a vicious beast. His eyes shined surprisingly wet in the twilight gleam as he ranted on: "You got anything to say now? Anything at all?"

"You keep saying you don't feel anything," said Kairi. "Riku told me so. DiZ too."

Axel bit his lip. Kairi saw it, saw the blood trickle out from dry skin. Saw him take a long, deep breath. "Okay then. You're really that stuck in your ways. I get that. I think I was like that too. That's fine. It's really fine. All of this is fine."

"That's not what I meant. Are you okay? Are--" Kairi said before she could stop herself and--

"Does it matter? Look at you, pulling out what DiZ and Riku said right after doubting them to my face. Good trap! Got me. I bet this is a ploy on my part. I'm a philosophical zombie here to devour your goddamn brains." He threw his head back and laughed. "Do you want to know the real joke about all of this?"

"I didn't mean to--"

"The real joke," he continued---and Axel paced through Kairi's room, snarling, staring ahead of every step he took "--the real joke is that even I can't tell if I'm feeling anything or not."

Axel stepped out the door and slammed it shut. There was nothing else to say, now.

She swept the rest of the room for mistakes, messes, clumps of dust. Axel must've had more control over his flames than he pretended; not a thing in the room was singed. Nothing was wrong, so she...well, she left.

The whole house felt so oppressive, so _dead_. A corpse about to rot through and collapse over these refugees from other worlds. Kairi had always loved the idea of staying in a haunted house, had even loved books about it--a favorite concerned strangers living together until the ghosts drove one of them crazy enough to drive her car smack into a tree and join the dead.

The idea was less enticing now.

Musing, Kairi walked down the hallway and found herself facing her. Backwards mirror, Namine.

And backwards mirror seemed just as surprised as Kairi. They stood blinking for a moment, backdropped by ragged wallpaper. Kairi made right, Namine moved in the same direction at the same time. Namine tried left just as Kairi made for it. It was the longest, weirdest game of "pardon me" Kairi experienced, and neither of them said a word before Kairi flattened herself against the wall and let Namine pass.

Kairi wanted to watch her walk away, saw that Namine was watching back. Looked away.

Had Kairi imagined the tension there or brought it there herself? What was a Nobody, anyway, outside of something that couldn't feel? There had to be more that they weren't telling her.

"Can't be a ghost, I'm not quite dead yet," Kairi whispered, meaning it to be a joke, finding the sound of it unpleasant when she spoke it aloud.

Kairi stood on the stairwell landing, looking over the mansion. Faded paintings, broken windows, a collapsed table. Had there just been one tragedy or a series of them? Which was worse? She gazed down at the broken table and wondered.

And then a naked brunette lady with writhing tentacles sprouting from of her pussy flew through the broken window and slammed into the table, bounced twice the floor before springing to her feet and summoning a gigantic goddamn key. Followed immediately by Riku, wielding a sword shaped like a bat-wing, wearing a withering scowl.

 _Sure_ , thought Kairi. _Why not_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THEN A SKELETON POPPED OUT HAPPY HALLOWEEN PLEASE LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE AND SMASH THAT SWEET BELL FOR NOTIFICATIONS
> 
> THE SKLETON WAS ALSO PAPYRUS OF UNDERTALE FAEM DOES THAT HELP
> 
> Kidding aside (but oh hey oh dang Gaster has taken over the Undertale Twitter that promises to get weird tomorrow also I'm trash which shouldn't be surprising if you're reading this here), this was admittedly a more "connective tissue" piece of the story. That's another reason this one took so long for me to write. To be frank, this was actually going to be a part of Chapter 12. Everything just kind of...exploded out horribly. Blood and gore everywhere. Please forgive this poor writer.


	14. A Shoulder to Cry On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xion explains it all. DiZ doth protest too much. Namine and Riku forget how thin the walls are. Kairi receives an unexpected guest.

 

Xion dragged a slow, withering gaze over the inhabitants of the mansion. It had been hours since the unidentified flying nudist incident, and she still seemed to be in the same (understandably) sour mood. Maybe that’s how she always was—Kairi didn’t know. Riku and Axel shared only the barest details with her, and those details contradicted one another. Xion was a henchman; Xion was a sweetheart. Xion was a living prison; Xion was an innocent doll. Xion was a sad dirty mouse; Xion was a princess in the wrong story.

For Kairi, the only thing certain about Xion was that she was wearing one of her thrift shop dresses now. Boobs and booty safely tucked away for this good, pure, innocent household. But this girl sitting at the (broken) table with them now, she didn’t look like Axel or Riku’s Xion at all. She looked rather like a cornered possum. Or no, she looked sly as a fox. Or no….

Xion was a black hole, swallowing Kairi’s gaze without even trying. Looked just like Kairi herself a year or so ago, but gone all _wrong_. She even sounded similar, with a voice like her past self injected into a bag of gravel. Why was that? And was Kairi a narcissist for staring so long?

“Riku spared you,” DiZ intoned, which wasn’t exactly true, but it was close enough. Kairi suspected DiZ would’ve been captain of the debate team in high school. He probably reported on people smoking in the bathrooms. “You have sworn to provide us information. Do you plan on doing so? Or did you sit us down to glower and narrate to yourself like a Catcher in the Rye?”

Kairi blinked. _I actually understood that reference_. Yes, DiZ was a colossal dick, but he apparently read books. Kairi didn’t know many people who read books and—she suddenly remembered—would probably never get to know all her classmates who _did_ read books.

Ope, here comes that existential horror.

“I didn’t _just_ sit you down to do all that,” said Xion. “I came to tell you that I’ve defected.”

“We picked up on that,” said Riku.

Axel’s lips twitched, but he said nothing.

“Would you let me finish talking, please? Thanks. I’ve defected _and_ I have information.”

DiZ spoke up: “Why did you defect?”

“Please let her talk,” said Namine quietly.

Kairi saw how Riku winced. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Go on, Xion. Take as much time as you need.”

Namine smiled. Kairi grit her teeth. It hurt. Fuck, it really did hurt, didn’t it. Shit. She’d known for a while but it always, always hurt.

“Alright. Namine, if any of these two try to interrupt me, could you make them feel bad again?”

Namine blinked. “Um.”

“Good,” said Xion. “Now everyone sit tight. I’ve got a story to tell you.”

* * *

 

_Now, you all know that there’s a multiverse at this point. Maybe you don’t know the word multiverse, but hey. Context clues. Easy to use. Do that._

_We’ve got this ocean of worlds stretching out as far as the eye can see. Even if you had all the time in the world, you couldn’t discover them all, right? Except that’s not true. You couldn’t do it in a lifetime, sure. Not even several. But let’s say that you’re not human, not mortal. If you don’t die, you_ have _all the time in the world, and eventually you could discover everything everywhere._

_Following me so far?_

_Let me tell you about Belle. Do you know who Belle is?_

(A few hands, no useful answers. Nobody knows. Kairi read a French novel with striking similarities to this Belle once. Axel has been to the Castle once or twice. No one else knows. Xion filled them in on the basics.)

_And now Belle is the leader of the Uplifted. She found a book once—something about mysteries or fishbait—and it did something to her heart. She’s not human. She’s immortal and cruel, and everyone under her is just as immortal. She’s coiled around their minds like a snake, or at least the Uplifted are. I don’t know how much she’s in control or how much they are._

(“Like Maleficent and the Hearltess,” said Riku. Namine gave him a wounded puppy-dog look. He stopped. Xion flashed a smile.)

_Sure, why not. Like Fifty-Cent and the Heartless._

_Look, I don’t know if Belle believes what she says. I don’t know if she even knows what she believes. But she’s immortal and has unlimited time, and she has a plan. She’s going to turn everyone else in the whole multiverse into Uplifted because she thinks it’s eternal sexual bliss. Which we want to stop, right? Right. I want to stop it too._

_I’m Uplifted too. I hate it. It’s not bliss. It’s hunger. I’m never satisfied, and not just—not just with sex. It’s more than that. I’m always unsatisfied. I feel polluted, deep inside. I feel like I’ve had my choices robbed from me. And the only reason I think I can resist that black hole feeling is that I was never a Nobody, never a Heartless, never a Somebody. How many of those are out there? Not enough to fight._

_Imagine a multiverse of slaves fucking the pain away. Now imagine that multiverse overflowing into the next one—because there’s not just one, there’s an infinity. It never ends._

_Flowing into the next one. And the next one. And another one._

_Infinite time. Infinite multiverses. A sexually transmitted apocalypse rising exponentially with every fallen multiverse. And sure, you can never conquer infinity, but it’s not about the endgame. I’m talking the suffering of an infected immortality multiplied by an infinite number of multiverses._

_I’m talking about the roiling seas of hell_.

* * *

 

Axel waited to see if Xion was done before he said:

“Did you rehearse that?”

“A couple times,” said Xion, a smile teasing her lips. “I had this whole bit at the end about Roxas, actually.”

“You cut that?”

“You’ve got to know your audience.”

“It’s pretty good,” said Axel. “You used to be really introverted, you know?”

 _And now DiZ goes_ \--

“Enough!”

 _So predictable_.

“Why should we believe a single word you’ve said? You, who have knowingly worked under this ‘Belle’? Which, I might add, is a poor choice for a made-up name. ‘Belle.’ A name that means beauty. Do you really think we wouldn’t pick up on this?”

But the room was sliding away from him. Everyone was looking at Xion again, but not—Kairi thought—with suspicion.

They wanted to see her punch this old fart back.

“You don’t have to believe anything at all, Ans—sorry, I forgot that you’re DiZ now.” She paused. DiZ froze. “If you believe me, you’ve got a head start on stopping the lot of them. I can tell you all about the Longinus and what happened to the other princesses. How all of that fits into this mess. Which—by the way, Kairi—”

Kairi jumped. She was a part of this? “Yes?”

“You might want to watch your back,” said Xion simply. Turned back to DiZ. “If you don’t believe me, you throw me out into the streets of Twilight Town. I’ll wander the worlds for a while. Then I’ll probably get captured and tortured—they’re very good at torture, and Roxas is still there to tell them all my weaknesses—and I will almost certainly tell them all everything about you.”

“Or a third option: we end you now,” said DiZ. “You’re an unknown. You have provided us with all of the information that we need—if that information is even true. And let us, for a moment, entertain the possibility that everything you’ve said is true after all. What reason is there to let someone live with us even as a prisoner who, by her own admission, no longer even qualifies as a constructed echo of a human being? What kind of madness might fester in that sort of mind? What wild hatreds? Riku, put your keyblade to her throat.”

The room fell quiet.

Beams of sunlight catching dust in the mansion. Astonishing how it never runs out in old houses, that dust. DiZ stood in his magnificent red robes, Riku on one side, Namine on the other. Across from them both, Kairi.

Everyone looked at him now, and no one looked kindly.

“Riku,” said DiZ. “Keyblade. Throat. Now.”

“Why?”

DiZ winced like he’d been slapped. “Riku, you _have_ been listening, have you not?”

“Every word of it,” said Riku.

The old man—Kairi could see the wrinkles clustered around his eyes and his mouth—looked over his lost audience. For a moment he did nothing. Then—slowly as a crumbling statue—he bowed his head. “Yes. You _have_ been listening to me, haven’t you? So you will do nothing to this stranger. You will allow not one but two members of Organization XIII under our roof, one of whom carries an unknown pathogen. You will feel marvelously satisfied with your own heroics. And I will endure, as I always have, the actions of young fools who fail to heed their elders.”

And Namine—thoughtful Namine, quiet Namine, artistic Namine—Namine stood up, crossed the room and looked at the old man DiZ. She looked into his dark golden eyes. A strange emotion crossed her face. Surprise? Pity?

She stood on her tiptoes, leaned in, whispered into his ear.

“I know,” said DiZ.

There was no formal ending to that meeting. Conversation withered on the vine. Those gathered around the broken table watched DiZ shuffle off to wherever he slept before breaking into inoffensive closing conversation.

How’s the weather (mild)? How’s the sunset (same as it ever was)? How are you, Xion (fine, thanks)?

And oh, look at that, the one thing that made Kairi feel a little interesting—being the newbie—was gone too, to a jailbait brunette recolor at that. Not that she wasn’t interesting. Far from it.

Xion, Axel, Riku, Namine. The four fell into a guarded conversation about something called Castle Oblivion, then started discussing Replicas, then a certain boy that made Kairi’s head ache to process.

Quietly, Kairi showed herself out.

* * *

 

Kairi had given up on night—the sun never set or rose here—so why not give up on sleep?

It wasn’t like she was going to get any tonight, after all. Not with the noises from her...neighbors.

Riku and Namine weren’t used to anyone else being in the mansion, probably. And it wasn’t like they were screaming each other’s name and crying out into the big, broken, echoing mansion. But steady thumping told its own story, and it wasn’t one that Kairi needed tonight while feeling alone, desperate, and….

What if she said something? Better yet, what if she just stormed down the hall to give them a piece of her mind? Just threw open the door and told them to keep it down, and see...everything, probably, unless she looked away.

Which, of course, she would. Feeling disgusted all the while at the way Riku had found some double of her to fuck while she was gone. Plunging his thick cock into this doppelganger of her, night after sweltering night, and for how long? How many nights shoving small wrists into a soft mattress, watching her blushing face turn to the ceiling, her legs spreading wider for him?

Or maybe her double took control. Maybe Namine was hungrier than Kairi gave her credit for. Perhaps Riku had lain on his own bed, nude and erect, cock dripping with precum, and all the while Namine slowly glided her fingers up his gushing cock until he promised her the world and more. Then she’d hike her dress up, ballerina-turn, shove her bare ass out at him. Give it a shake, raising it a bit to hint at the pink lips of her pussy. Ask him to beg just a little bit more.

The thumping next door picked up. Kairi’s hand pushed beneath her panties. No point in pretending she wasn’t horny now, not when her wet panties were starting to cling. Sighing, she dipped a couple fingers in her juices, ran them up and down her lips a few times. It didn’t take long at all—how the fuck was she this wet already? Her thighs, wet; her ass, getting wet. Ridiculous.

Kairi pulled her skirt and panties down to her bent knees, shifted her legs apart. And from the other side, undoubtedly, Riku. “Please please please please can I—” Riku, begging, desperate.

“Not even close.”

 _Not even close_ , mouthed Kairi, and the part of her brain that could still think properly was happy to be proven right about how much of a horny sub Riku was. She gave her clit a slow up and down rub for a moment, back and forth, letting herself ride the thrill of it for a moment before starting some side-to-side action—all slowly, all savoring, but only slowly for a moment—little wet sounds from her fingers—before she had to go harder. Faster then, back and forth, little strokes up and down, while her other hand teased her entrance.

Not even close. Thumping slowed. Kairi slowed her fingers. Beneath her she let herself see Riku thrusting helplessly. Kairi smirked. Ran a hand down his muscled chest to his navel to where his cock joined her—paused to flick her bean a couple times—and back up to his muscles.

 _You’re cheating_ , Kairi said in her mind. _Cheaters get punished_. She took his soft nipple in her hand and pinched. Hard.

The real Riku didn’t moan, so neither did the one in her mind. Bit it back, he did. So cute! Didn’t want to let her know just how much she’d won, did he? Kairi rolled her hips back and forth once just to see more of that cute face (curling her soaked fingers, rubbing up and down on her clit with her other hand) before losing her cool. She needed it, needed it hard and fast and _yesterday_ , the day before that, a week ago, constantly. Needed to shove her thighs together around that cock and lose all meaning.

Kairi (in her mind) slapped her hands against his muscled chest, left bright pink marks—pink as a cock, pink as the pussy she grinded against him. Her juices stuck in his cock hair, rubbed rough against her pelvis—she bounced on him now, let him fuck without punishing him, wanting every thrust, wanting him to break her to pieces.

( _But how would that feel?_ some part of her wondered. _A cock a cock I want a cock how would it feel all meaty inside soft but hard and wriggling wriggling? do they wriggle I know Selphie wriggled when she was Uplifted and oh no I shouldn’t have)_

but she already had and now Selphie had her pinned against the wall, pushing deep inside, spreading her (fingers) tentacles wide to hit every part of her, begging her to join the Uplifted, gushing pheremones, and Kairi hated the intrusion but frigged herself anyway, whispering:

“I’d do it yeah I’d do it fuck me I’d do it let me be with you I’ll do it and we can be together and fuck everybody and it’ll be just us just us again just like that oh God please, please, please--”

Fire burning between her legs, tentacles thrusting, and her face, uh, her face—

She wiped her eyes. How had it all gone so wrong? Why was she still horny? (Four fingers now, curled, spreading) What was wrong with her? Was she broken now? The orgasm was building now and she let her thoughts slip into its bright white light. She spread her legs, knocked the cover off her bed completely, flexed her neck, opened her mouth like she was going to scream at the ceiling for Selphie, Selphie fucking her raw, Selphie shooting spurt after spurt of cum inside her till she was giggling in a pool of it again and begging for more begging for

And then.

Then.

A knock on the door.

Kairi froze. Most of her hand was deep inside of her vagina. The cover was on the floor. The sheets...the sheets would have to be covered. Everything would have to be covered. Did she smell? Did it smell like that? How did she—could she—?

Another knock on the door. Same cadence, same speed. Could they hear it in her voice? They probably could, somehow. Oh God.

“I’m trying to sleep,” Kairi stammered. The interruption should’ve ruined everything. Why was she still horny? She curled her fingers, wishing she wasn’t, feeling helpless to stop herself. “Is this important?”

“I’m sorry.” That familiar _almost-mine_ voice. Xion. “I don’t know if it’s important. I just felt like I needed to talk. Is that okay?” A pause. “You aren’t busy, are you?”

Kairi sighed. _Not anymore,_ no. The thumping behind her slowed from bullet fast to cannonfire to three last long, strategic thumps before sliding to a stop. “Not at all. Just let me get decent.” Though she could’ve lied, she realized, but it was already too late. Pajama pants out. Pussy holstered, boobies protected from sinful gazes. Wham. Decency.

And—immediately—a wet spot in her pajama pants. Damn. Too late to turn back now. Kairi shifted uncomfortably, tried not to think about it—the pants, the end of the thumping, none if it had made it all _disappear_.

Kairi opened the door.

The dimmed lights in the mansion brought out the unhealthy snow white pallor of Xion’s skin. She stood in the doorway, one of Riku’s spare black coats baggy on her body, fiddling with her hands as if Kairi wasn’t there.

“Xion?” said Kairi, feeling stupid as she said it.

Xion didn’t look up. “However could you tell.” Kairi could hear the smile in her voice.

“Guessed. What’s up?”

“Can I come in?

 _You a vampire?_ Kairi wanted to joke, till she remembered that yes, that was kind of true. This time she stopped herself before she could blurt anything ridiculous out. “Go for it.”

Kairi held the door open for her as she stepped inside, looked around the room that Kairi had managed to make a mess of in just a few days.

“There’s not much here.”

“Just got here.”

“You too?”

“Yep.” Kairi flung out her hands. “Welcome to the Official OSHA House of Hazards. We’re all about safety violations and wonders!”

At which point—just as Kairi began to feel the heat between her legs subside-—the wall-thumps started up again with _vigor._ Lovely.

Xion laughed—a sympathy laugh, Kairi was sure. “I’m looking forward to the wonders.”

“Some of the wonders are also safety violations.”

“I figured.”

Silence. Slapping against the wall. Renewed heat, an awareness of wetness. Fucking hell. Kairi met Xion’s eyes because she had to look at _some_ thing, damn it. But Xion was still looking down at her hands.

“They’re really having fun over there, huh,” said Xion.

“Maybe,” said Kairi. “Could be something else.”

“Like fixing drain pipes.”

“Or laying pipe. Lots of pipe possibilities.”

For a time, nothing but the rhythm on the wall. Finally Xion’s hands slowed, her yellow eyes looked met Kairi’s blue. “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she said.

“You’re doing the right thing, that’s what.”

“Oh, sure. I know.” Xion pulled up to the bed, sat down beside Kairi on the still-rumpled sheets. “But that is not what I meant at all. I just don’t feel like I’m a part of this place.”

“Join the club.”

“I’d like to.”

“I mean the smaller club. The one with just me and Axel in it.”

“Axel sure, but you?” Xion smirked. She put her legs up on the bed and turned to Kairi, examining her for a moment. “Come on, now. You’re the center of this whole tapestry. You _have_ to know that.”

“It’s that other boy who is. The one in my head, the one I can’t quite remember.” Kairi rested a hand on her chest for a moment. Maybe she’d feel him in there. Maybe she could connect the rush of emotions that came, red and hot and sad, with some sort of memory…

“He was obsessed with you. Probably loved you, I guess. That’s why I’m like this.” Xion waved a hand over her uncanny face. “It’s kinda insulting, honestly. Not that you aren’t good looking. You’re beautiful, in fact. But I’ve got your face. And Namine is just you. As for Riku, he’s obsessed with you still, even if he’s scared that he’ll hurt Namine by admitting it. Belle wants you too. Everything is about you. How does that feel?”

“It doesn’t feel like it’s about me.”

“That’s sad,” said Xion. “You’re hypnotizing. You’ve got eyes that make me wish I was evil so I could just kidnap you, forever and ever.”

Kairi went tissuepaper white. Xion cackled. Namine whimpered through the wall.

“It’s a joke, a joke!” said Xion, beaming. “I’m sorry, I’m still getting used to trying to be human again. Bad taste.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I really am sorry. See, this is what I’m talking about—this exactly. I don’t belong here with you people. DiZ knew that. Why don’t any of you?”

“I think they know. But what’s his face...he...” Kairi rested her hand on her chest again and tried to remember. “Sora.” Breathed the name out and it tasted sweet as petals on the wind. Sora. “That’s it. Sora, he’d let you in. We don’t have him, but I bet he’d let you in.”

“Sora. You mean the guy who ran off without you? The guy whose data I contain in me, captured, all corrupted by whatever I am and whatever the Uplifted are? You still care about Sora?” Xion just shook her head. “I was like you all once. Would’ve been the same way about him and acted like a complete idiot. I wish I was still like that.”

_I’m not happy. I’m alone. I’m like you. I don’t know why I’m saying this. It feels like the right thing to say. It makes me feel like a hero. It makes me feel like the kind of person everyone wants me to be. I fucking hate this. I hate all of this. I hate the way they all make me feel. I hate the way you came in when I wanted to come, and you pulled me into this scene of yours, and now I’ve got to be kind and reflective and sacrifice more and more and more and it never stops_

_it never ever stops everyone always needing me to be the shoulder to cry on all the time sweet Kairi good Kairi pure-hearted Kairi I can’t do this for much longer I’m so so so so tired and there are ghosts wearing my face all around me and I just can’t do this anymore I just can’t_

“I’m sorry for unloading on you like that,” said Xion.

“It’s okay.” _I’m going to scream_. Namine screamed.

“If you want to unload all over you, you could.”

“Um.”

“You said you feel like an outsider too?”

Kairi winced. “No, I was just...”

“You can tell me. Or don’t. I understand.”

“Thank you. I don’t want to talk about it right now, but...”

“But you can if you want. Just ask. Outsiders are so much easier to talk to when they look like you, don’t you think?” Xion sat back on the bed, finger pressed against her smile. “Or am I just a narcissist?”

“Could be both.” The thumping went on and on, but it wasn’t what was turning her on anymore. _I guess I’m a narcissist too. What am I even doing? What am I thinking?_

“I like you,” said Xion, hopping up off the bed. “You’re cute.”

“I, uh, I—”

She opened the door of Kairi’s room and flashed bright, oddly sharp teeth. “I’m almost sorry for interrupting your jackoff session,” she said, danced out the door, and slammed it shut.

Namine gasped: “Yes, fuck me just like that, fuck me like I’m yours, make me yours, split me open, split me--”

Kairi sighed heavily, pulled down her panties, and tried not to think about Xion.

This went unsurprisingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as the ancient mariner's meme goes, "i lived bitch."
> 
> There are a number of reasons I haven't been uploading. The biggest reason is that I hated Chapter 13 enough that it almost killed all interest I had in the story for me. It just felt...wrong, somehow? It was essentially connective tissue to get from one plot point to another, but it FELT like connective tissue. That's never good. I'm sorry for that, and I plan on tucking a rewrite into this story sometime. I wrote a little Deltarune erotica to clear my palette a bit.
> 
> (it's the most successful erotica i've ever written godfucking damnit it isnt even the best thing ive written grumble grumble)
> 
> The other reason was that, early on in December, I caught an illness. Midway through December, as I was writing this chapter again, I caught ANOTHER illness. Sicknesspalooza. Was too annoyed to do much of anything, writingwise.
> 
> Illnesses are being taken care of, tho. Here I am. Let's roll, folks--we've finally hit the meat of what I've been trying to get to since Alice's Last Adventure, way back in 2018....


	15. Kettering (lyrics)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxas gets the advice of some salty seadogs. Axel has an unforgettable reunion. Kairi opens the door. An unpayable debt is established, if unjustly.

 

Roxas sat in the wreckage of Port Royal, cross-legged, golden hair flickering in the light of the burning town. Uplifted dragged the lucky from their former homes and slaughtered anyone dumb enough to fire a gun. Out on the ocean, a black ship sparked with deckside fires—even the dead crew of the Pearl were not safe.

“I know,” said Roxas to the young man and woman sitting across from him, “that this whole thing is a little, um,” he wiggled his fingers, “ _weird_. But I’ve told you everything that matters, okay? So what do you think?”

“Think?” Will Turner echoed. He squeezed the hand of Elizabeth Swann. There had to be a way out of this conversation.

“About Xion.”

Will turned over the last delirious hour in his head. It was so easy to lose track of plot points. “She’s the girl, then. The one who got...recruited with you.”

“Yeah.” A smile crossed his face. “She’s the best. Axel too, but I don’t know where he is. I bet if I find her, I’ll find him too.”

“Um.”

“Like, don’t get me wrong,” Roxas said quickly, “she’s not my _girlfriend_ or anything.”

There was a blood-curdling scream somewhere in a nearby alley. Third in the past twenty minutes. Or fourth?

“Of course not,” mumbled Elizabeth, “we wouldn’t dream of it.”

“But she _is_ my friend, and I have no idea where she is, and I keep thinking that maybe I did something wrong.” He stroked his chin, fuzzy with newly grown hairs. “I just can’t think of what I did.”

Will glanced at a moist chunky pile that used to be a village guard named Dennis. “Yes, I have no idea. You seem like such a delightful person.”

“I’m not, honestly,” said Roxas. “Thanks, though.”

“Oh,” said Will, “you’re welcome.”

“Have you been talking to her at all?” asked Elizabeth. “No one just runs away from home all at once. That’s usually the last step in a long, arduous process. This was really so surprising?”

Roxas stood up, threw his arms out to mope, kicked guardsman Dennis’s dismembered hand a few meters into a gutter

Elizabeth tilted her head. She either hadn’t noticed or was considerably more badass than Will had expected. “Well?”

“Maybe I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should’ve been.” Roxas kicked again, this time at the air.

“Maybe you weren’t,” said Elizabeth. “But there’s still time to fix it. All you need to do is find her.”

“Which is what Belle wants too,” said Roxas. He shuddered.

“Maybe without telling this Belle,” said Elizabeth quickly. “Just, you know. You and She-bon for a while. Hear her side of things, think about it for a while. Respect her boundaries, though! Let her mull it over for a while before you come back.”

“And we’ll be there to hear how it goes after you have that talk,” Will added quickly. Elizabeth winked approvingly.

Roxas sat down again, legs splaying on the ground, hands spread out.“Wow. You’d really do that for me?”

“We would,” said Elizabeth.

“Nobody was ever this nice to me when I was with the Organization. Things are so much better now. I didn’t think things would get like this. I thought...” Roxas examined his hands. “Thank you so much.”

“Definitely,” said Will.

“I’m serious—I don’t know how to thank you enough. When we manage to find Xion, I’ll do exactly what you said.”

Elizabeth nodded vigorously.

“You’re such good people,” said Roxas. “It isn’t fair. And you want to spend so much time as _this_ just so you can help me. I don’t know if I can let that happen.” The blonde boy wiped his dry eyes. “I don’t know if I can let you sacrifice even a moment’s pleasure just to help somebody like me out. Not after doing so much for me already, just now.” Roxas stood up, grinning tightly. Humped, slimy figures slinked from alleys. “No, you two deserve to be Uplifted at once. If I’d known you’d be so helpful, I would’ve Uplifted you two _first_. You’re a credit to your people.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Will stammered. Sword had been taken hours ago. Nothing usable nearby. Shit. “It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

“We do not deserve such kindness yet,” Elizabeth added. “Not until we, uh. We….”

Roxas laughed. Rocks rolling over hopscotch squares. “You’re both so humble, too! I can’t believe it. You deserve all the kindness in the world. And don’t you know, we have it? This world and all worlds.”

Will wrapped an arm around her waist. Elizabeth squeezed him tight.

“You’re so romantic. It’s inspirational. Maybe I’ll make Xion my girlfriend after all,” said Roxas.

Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann closed their eyes. Squeezed. The space between their fingers was uncomfortable and sweaty but they both appreciated the meaning beyond sensation.

And then the horde fell upon them.

 

* * *

 

Beneath all of Axel’s bluster, in the dark place beneath his cynical mask, a single repeating thought: This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Xion showing up and revealing the big bad guy plan. DiZ losing his stranglehold on the kids. Now things were supposed to start going _right_. Now they were united in purpose, ready to hit things with giant keys and all manner of other thoroughly impractical weapons until everything went right again.

But over the few days after Xion’s arrival, the mood in the mansion was... _stretched_. Thin and pallid cheerfulness, thin enough to see through to the anxiety beneath.

No direction.

Not that Axel missed DiZ much. No, Axel had known old men like DiZ all of his life—probably had known that exact old man almost all of his life, in fact, if the Nobody’s guess was right. DiZ was an old chess player. Every world had them, these schemers like DiZ or Xemnas or that mousey king, pushing around those unlucky enough to be young and in need of guidance.

In fact, Axel briefly debated pushing DiZ down a flight of stairs. Twice. But in the end he was so _sad_ that it didn’t even seem worth it. Surveying his crumbling mansion or the cold metallic basement, all of these things that had been taken from him. How many schemes were still locked away in those hibernation pods? How many times did old man Ansem have to talk himself into going forward, no matter the cost?

Things were awkward with Namine, of course. How could they not be? Namine was civil, but, well. Axel _did_ sort of kidnap and try to murder (? it had been a while since the whole Castle Oblivion thing, and Axel didn’t particularly feel like looking up the details in his memory) her.

As for Riku, he never said a word to him. Probably blamed him for what happened with Sora, which, well, fair.

Kairi didn’t talk to him. Maybe she would eventually. Axel pretended not to mind, and sometimes almost convinced himself.

All of this left Xion herself, and the toxic gumbo of feelings around her. He loved her just as he loved Roxas, even now, even after all of this—though he wouldn’t use that word, couldn’t allow himself to admit that he _felt_ yet.

Still, there was love. With it, though, a sense of horror about the empty smile on Roxas’s face. The horror, the disgust clung to her. The ludicrous sensation that she was to blame, though the idea that the Xion he’d known could be to blame for _anything_ was insane to contemplate.

But then, she’d changed, hadn’t she? Changed as Roxas had changed.

And so on, thoughts spinning and fidgeting till a bored Axel had to finally just _talk_ to her just to get some of this, any of this, behind him.

Xion had been spending long days in the basement laboratory doing who knew what. Reading, mostly, from what Axel had heard—he hadn’t checked himself yet. In some odd way, talking to her meant replacing the Xion in his memory—innocent and intelligent Xion, sweetly melancholy no. XIV—with this glowering stranger.

It was a matter of _when,_ not _if_. Always had been. And maybe now Axel could finally be used to people he loved turning into cruel strangers.

There were cracking sounds in the library that led to the basement. Axel turned on the stairwell and listened for a moment. Yeah, cracking. _Wet_ cracking, and a pause for something else that he couldn’t place, something like dice rolling and plastic rubbing against plastic, again and again.

No time like the present. Axel crept down the stairs, resisting the urge—as we creatures of bad taste often have to do—to whistle a jaunty tune. Crack. Plastic rubbing. Crack…

Nothing. Axel paused at the turn of stair. Listened.

“Can I help you, Axel?”

Axel managed not to flinch. A pair of tired yellow eyes gazed up at him from a pallid face.

“You all had me and Roxas doing an awful lot of stealth missions,” said Xion, “back then.”

“Good times.”

“The stealth missions were pretty annoying, to be honest.”

“The thrill of stepping into the shadows, hiding behind corners, ducking under cardboard boxes.” Axel grinned. “You’ve got no sense of _drama_.”

“Run from a hopping wooden candelabra enough times and you kinda lose, uh, _that_.” But she was smiling. That was something, wasn’t it? “What do you want, Axel?”

“To catch up. Are we going to just stand up here?” Axel set his butt on the railing. “Not the comfiest, but, you know. Whatever.”

“Come on down.”

The computer room wasn’t any comfier. There was just one chair, in fact, which Xion chivalrously let Axel sit in, his legs splayed to either side. Xion sat cross-legged on the floor, looking nearly like a student save for the hint of irony to her pale smile.

“So what do you _really_ want?” she said.

“Really?”

“ _Really_ want.”

“How’re you feeling?”

Xion blinked. “Okay. But _really_ really.”

“ _Really_ really.”

The smile faded. “What’s this about?”

“Hmm”

Xion sneered. “What do you _want_ from me?”

“What’s with you? I wanna _talk_. I haven’t seen you in months! The last time I saw Roxas, he was totally gone in the head! I thought maybe you’d be at least _you_.” Axel leaned over the back of the chair. “But you aren’t, are you?”

Xion’s eyelid twitched. “I’m me. Whatever that means, I’m me.”

“Whatever that—”

She jumped up before he could finish. “Stop repeating every fucking thing I say, Axel. I don’t _know_ what that means! You want to know what my life’s been so far? You want a little peek into my head? Are you just curious? I get that. I’m curious about a lot of stuff. So I found out! I found out that I’m Sora, except I don’t _get_ to be Sora. I’m Roxas, but I don’t get to be him either. Don’t get to be Kairi, don’t get to be whoever the fuck Ventus is. I don’t get to be a Nobody! I don’t even get to be a real, proper member of Organization XIII, and I didn’t even _want that_. It was just all I had. All that any of us had.”

“I know,” said Axel.

“Yeah. You sure do, don’t you.”

“I’m sorry. That’s kinda why I wanted to come down here, a bit. And just to see how...you were doing. With the, uh. Glowing yellow eyes tentacle thing.”

Xion made a sound like a collapsing accordion and leaned against a couple monitors with a thump. A couple tentacles stuck out from under her robes, started tapping curse words into a nearby keyboard. “My typing speed’s way up. That’s one thing.”

“Nerd.”

Xion’s lips twitched. She wasn’t smiling. She was clearly very serious now, and would absolutely not be smiling under any circumstances. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’ve already lost one kid. That does things to the ego.”

“And that’s all.”

“That’s all,” said Axel.

“Sure it is,” said Xion, laughing softly. “Anyway, I wouldn’t say you _lost_ him. I think we could pull him back, maybe. The concentrated powers of a Princess of Heart can do a whole lot for some of the mental changes, for one thing. That would be the fastest, easiest way to make this work. There are probably other ways. I’m not the scientist here. If the old man’s done moping, maybe you could talk to him about it.”

“I’m sure he’s got plenty to say. He always did. I don’t know know if any of it’s useful.”

“You really do love talking about Roxas, don’t you?” Smiling now. Stepping up, putting her hands behind her back. “You’ve always talked about him a lot.”

“Not like _you_ haven’t.”

“You’re right. We’ve both talked about him. The only difference is that, as far as I know…” Walking closer, bouncing her hips. “...you haven’t fucked him _nearly_ as much as I have.”

Axel winced. Looked at the groudn. Xion took another step.

“I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just...” she frowned. “You’re a collection of impulses. I am too. I think I just don’t pretend as much as you all do. As all of you do.”

“Xion,” said Axel softly. “Come on. Stop this.”

“Stop what? Look, I know. We’ve talked about it, Roxas and me. He really liked the way you spread his legs when you fucked his ass, you know. Pushed his legs up and such. I’m familiar with those little white kneecaps, to be honest. Not that I’m letting you go on that. It’s a bit irresponsible of you, as a mentor. Little questionable. But you _personally_ made sure he finished every time. You really _do_ have a big mouth, don’t you? Pretty sweet of you for a boy, I’d say. Do you do that for all the guys and girls or was it just for him?”

“This isn’t funny.”

“What makes you think I’m trying to be funny? You two fucked. I’m talking to you about it. Does that upset you for some reason? Do you feel bad about it? I didn’t think Nobodies could feel bad about anything. Isn’t that true?”

Axel examined a mote of dirt on the metal floor.

“I do care about you, you know. As much as I can care, Replica that I am. As much as you can care about _that_ , Nobody that you are. I just want you to admit it. I want you to admit what you did to me and him—that’s all. You came down here to be absolved, didn’t you? You wanted to check on me to make sure I was okay after you fucked me up, fucked him up?” She nodded to herself. “Inducted us into a cult, and now you feel like this is all your fault. The Organization first, and then this. Darker yet darker. That’s fine. Just _say_ it. I need you to _say_ it.” She bit her lip. “That’s all I’m asking.”

“Listen, the Superior,” began Axel, and he stopped. Stumbled over his words.

Xion tilted her head.

“This _isn’t_ my fault,” said Axel softly.

Xion spun around, slowly sat down on his lap in the metal chair.

“Not a single thing?” she whispered. Pressed herself down against him in the chair. Axel thought hard about the fluorescent lights. “You came to me. You came down here to talk to me. I just, I...” and she paused. Her voice broke. “Um. I, ah,” she wiped her face. It was dry. Crocodile tears? “I just need you to say it. I need you to say that you’re sorry. For the Organization.”

Axel writhed against her, trying to get away, not really trying to get away. “The Superior,” he repeated, throat dry.

“How much time to you spend lying to yourself?” Xion stood, pushed him back in his chair, nearly sent him falling. “Does it get boring?”

Something snapped in Axel’s chest. Jolted up from his chair, stepped clangingly against the metal, stood tall with his chin nearly over her head. “Stop. Last chance.”

“Make me.”

Axel’s eye twitched. He gripped her cheeks, pulled her head up to stare into her cold blue eyes

The room smelled so sweet. She was so much smaller than him, and he could...he could feel how warm her face was. Almost hot, and he knew hot, knew fire, could _feel_ fire flowing up into his long cock. She wanted it—the growing smile on her face told him that—and he knew he should give it to her hard, bend her over that chair and rail her raw till she was begging for him to stop.

Begging for him to stop.

Axel swallowed. Gently let go of her cheeks, hands shaking. Turned away. Didn’t want to look. Better to stare at a set of monitors blinking and beeping and scrolling garbage info that meant nothing.

“Axel?”

“Xion, this thing you’re doing? It’s fucked up. It’s wrong.” Letters and code and characters scrolling in front of him, meaning nothing. Better that than her face, sickly and smiling and wrong. “I did some messed up stuff with the Organization. There. I’ll admit it. But what you just did, I...” His cock pressed uncomfortably against his underwear. “You _know_ you just drugged me, right? Can we call it like it is? What _was_ that? What did you want me to do?”

Scrolling scrolling scrolling. Axel was shaking. Must’ve been the drug. That was it.

“I wanted you to admit it.”

“So I did,” said Axel. “Are you happy? Or do you still want this fucked up power play?” He glanced back for a moment, met her eyes for a moment. “Would that fix what we did to you and Roxas?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Fuck you it’s not like that. I’m done talking.” Careful not to look at her, afraid of seeing her face—of seeing the look on her face, smug or sad or _any_ thing—Axel made for the stairs.

“I messed up. I do want somebody to talk to. I need somebody to talk to. I think I’m, um, I think I might be broken? I think I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I think I keep making mistakes. I think I’m turning cruel and I don’t know why. I think...”

Axel began to walk.

“I think I’m becoming a monster. I don’t want to be like Belle. Axel. I wasn’t thinking. I was so upset. Axel, I need you here. Axel, please. Oh god please. Don’t leave me alone like this. Axel. You’re the only one I know. Axel. Everyone else is _gone_. Axel. Please. Axel. Tell me what to do. I’ll listen this time. I need you. I trust you. I do, I really do. I just. I. Everything hurts. Everything always hurts and I don’t know when it stops….”

Her voice echoed up the metallic corridor to the library. It reverberated, echoed, became ghostly. For a moment Axel listened to her. Then he stepped out of the library.

And he slammed the door.

 

* * *

 

Yes, Twilight Town at night was an empty graveyard and yes, the tension in the Mansion is thick as it is bone-melting, but Kairi was in fact believe it or not managing perfectly well, thanks for asking.

Kairi was the sort of person who was _always_ managing perfectly well, thanks, because she was a healthy and competent person. Always had been. Yes, Riku and the other boy (Soda? she’d loved him so much, why--?) could get into scrapes but she was always there to pull them out. And was fine with it.

Was fine now, especially. Now more than ever, because Kairi loved being a part of something greater than herself (had joined the debate team for that reason) and loved doing things for a good cause (she’d led can drives in the high school which um seemed very pointless now that everyone was dead but haha what can you do).

Kairi wanted to go out. She wanted to sleep all day. Mostly she got to do the first. After all, no one was supposed to live in the mansion, so they were only allowed out at night. Even then, they had to ask Riku or Namine—the temporary leaders of the whole cabal—for permission.

Getting a hold of either of them at night was...difficult, given the state they were usually in. Not that it was any easier talking to them during the day. The more Riku didn’t talk to her, the more anxious he seemed to be about it, like he was building a worse possible scenario for that talk day by day. As for Namine, Kairi was the one who didn’t want to talk to _her_.

Bad enough that she looked like her. Worse, she _was_ her. That seemed like something you had to address, right? The whole “you are a piece of my body or something, I don’t know, it’s ambiguous” thing.

Namine _was_ her, and—if Kairi wanted to be honest with herself for a change—this lookalike was regularly fucking one of Kairi’s three childhood crushes. It felt like theft. Made Kairi feel gross, but it _did_ feel like theft. ~~And that made her hate herself even more.~~

Still wasn’t talking much with Axel. Not after what happened. But the mood had changed so completely in the mansion that even he seemed more tired. That untouchable mannequin smile of his flickered now and then. Kairi wanted to ask him why, but that would’ve been weird. Maybe later.

Always later.

But then there was Xion.

Xion actually _listened_. She was odd, sure, but who wouldn’t be after all she’d dealt with? Kairi would rant about the nothing that was her day, about her scattered thoughts, and Xion would actually bother to ask questions. And Kairi would ask questions back, ask about _her_ day. Xion would flinch like Kairi had plunged a hook into her and pulled, but then…

Then she’d say, usually.

And sometimes Kairi would cry. Things were obviously good right now for everybody, and Kairi felt very essential, but there were always bad times. Xion seemed to know when Kairi needed her to climb into her bed and give her someone to cry into. Were Replicas supposed to be robots? Because she felt nothing like metal. She was soft and warm and ruffled her fingers through Kairi’s hair as she sobbed.

Didn’t say anything like “there, there.” Didn’t dare to provide some solution. Just let Kairi spill feelings and saltwater into her black coat.

Xion was so much more abstract when she talked, but she did. Talked about Belle, about Roxas, about Axel and the Organization. Talked not in concrete terms but as a poet. Kairi couldn’t follow what happened, but she could at least figure out what happened to _her_. That was enough, Kairi supposed.

But that was all. Kairi and Xion. Never going out in the day, because they were supposed to be _quiet_.

“Aren’t we supposed to be _quiet_?” Kairi said one fine morning, injecting it into a typically inane conversation with one of the most important people in her life.

“What?” Riku stammered. “When?”

It was too late to turn back. “All the time,” she said. “You know. To thwart Belle and such, and to keep all the people in the Town from showing up.”

“I guess,” said Riku. They were in the garden outside of the mansion now, surrounded by abstract statues. Sometimes Kairi liked to stare out at the trees. She hadn’t expected to see him there.

But he was there, and she was angry (which she wasn’t usually, but it must’ve been a bad day or some fucking thing or other god damn it) and she said “Sure would be great if you could stop being so loud.”

“Um.”

No turning back. Even if she wanted to, wanted to desperately. Anger was inertia. “You and Namine. Loud. Every night through the wall. I can’t sleep.”

Riku cringed. “I didn’t know you weren’t sleeping okay. I’ll, uh, talk to….”

“My Nobody. _My_ Nobody.”

Riku flinched. There was a silence there in the forest. Birds singing, branches swinging in the breeze, Kairi wondering what the fuck she’d done.

“She’s her own person,” said Riku.

“I know that. But it’s loud.”

“I guess so. I’m sorry.” He glanced around the garden helplessly.

“You don’t talk to me at all. I mean, you do. You’re talking a lot, but you’re not _saying_ anything. We used to talk all the time. Me and you and...”

“Soda,” said Riku, or something like that name.

“Soda,” Kairi repeated. Riku raised an eyebrow, probably getting ready to interrupt with how she wasn’t being fair. Kairi rushed through it: “We were always together, you know? Scary movies at your place. The whole joke you did about magic lessons, and how it went all crazy. And we built that stupid raft together.” She touched one of the malformed stone sculptures outside the mansion. “ _Together_. I thought that’s how it was always going to be. I wasn’t going to abandon you. You and Soda were going to be there for me. Always. Forever.”

“I am.”

“We’ve been here in the mansion together for weeks and we’re just now talking. _Really_ talking. And you wanna say that you haven’t been dodging me?”

“I haven’t, I—”

“You don’t even _look_ at me sometimes. I don’t care about Namine, okay? I don’t! If that’s your hangup, I don’t fucking care about her. She could die tomorrow and I wouldn’t care. It’s you. It’s how you don’t _talk_ to me. You don’t say anything. You—”

“Oh, I bet you’d like it if she died tomorrow, huh?” Riku snapped. “No competition.”

“She’s just me. That’s barely competition.”

“You take that back.”

“It’s literally true. I don’t know what else I can say.”

“Fucking _leave_ , Kairi.”

“Bet it’s so good to find somebody who just came into existence, huh? Born sexy yesterday. Somebody you can just stick your dick in and guide, bit by bit, till you get bored of the whole ingenue thing?”

Riku slammed his hand against one of the concrete nightmares in the garden. “You don’t even know his name. Don’t pretend some kind of moral high ground. I know exactly what kind of person you are. You got bored with him. That’s why you can’t remember. That or you aren’t into that kinda thing….” Riku winced at his own words, and Kairi wondered why, but it was too late. “Looking at Selphie the way you did. I bet you got what you wanted from her. Must make it easier now that she’s dead.”

And so on. So many things both of them would regret, and so little time.

Back and forth, they made the most of their time.

Kairi ran sobbing through the halls of mansion, past tilted portraits of no one who mattered, mind frothing with savage words for him and from him. She threw the door open and dashed into her bed without seeing it, just feeling it, slapping her face against it, wanting that swallowing sensation of sleep _now_.

But it wouldn’t come. Just cold pillow. A still-unfamiliar mattress, so unlike the one from a world that was...that was temporarily gone, at worst. Temporarily like last time.

Worlds don’t _die_ , you know. No one ever dies in Kingdom Hearts.

So, you know, she was crying into her pillow about the idea of people dying about um about uh about the possibility of Tidus’s house going away, with its comfortable couches and memories of a beautiful party with Selphie or the temple where Kairi watched her stepmother find a partner and wished so hard for happiness or um oh god the idea that ah Selphie and Tidus and Wakka and Agnes Oblige and Ringabel and Edea and Mr. Scientia.

imagine that so many interesting people could really be gone and that would be it and there was nothing that anyone could do about it

oh.

she’d have to wash the pillowcase now. too wet, too salty.

sometimes you get emotional you know even when everything is going so well and you just gotta find a pillowcase before smiling at the sunrise and

but there isn’t a sunrise in twilight town

now that she

really

thought

about it.

Kairi wept.

She cried and slammed her arms against the mattress and no one heard and the walls would keep banging every night and every night she’d consider walking out to knock but they would judge her they would say something wouldn’t they definitely and then there’d be so much more crying

so she cried here instead of out there

thoroughly alone

as was proper for a savior

until

Somebody knocked on the door. Had been knocking for half a minute now, actually, but it hadn’t quite registered till now (now that she had plied herself out of her own head or heart or whatever the proper terminology for it was).

Kairi dragged her face against her pillow a few times, felt the saltwater stains.

“What,” she wanted to leave it at that. But as a Princess of Heart (ex-Princess of Heart? It was all very unclear, especially these days) she was compelled to be warmhearted and caring and all of that. “can I do for you?”

“Kairi?” Xion’s voice. It was Kairi’s own voice, nearly, stained though it was with some lingering guttural pain, the exact taste of which she could not identify. Duplicates everywhere. That boy she loved, that Soda. Stealing her again and again, planting her on strange bodies.

Anyway. Too late to pretend to be asleep now, but she wanted so direly to be. To sleep and when wakened, take her waking slow.

To sleep even if Xion made her feel less alone. Even if she needed somebody to touch her, to listen, to cry into now more than ever.

“Yeah,” said Kairi. Fishing for the words, yanking them from her depths because she didn’t _want_ to, because she _had_ to, because she’d hate herself if she didn’t answer. “I’m awake.”

Xion was the one to open the door.

And she stood there, eyes damp, clutching her arms to her black-cloaked chest. A mirror that listened. Which was a cruel thing to think about somebody with their own life, their own memories, their own heart (maybe—unclear), but Kairi supposed that she deserved to be cruel for a chance. A bit. Just once. Just a smidge.

“You’re awake,” said Xion.

“I am.”

“Are you okay?” said Xion.

 _Projecting, you think?_ thought Kairi, but her cheeks were still raw and she supposed that it was obvious. “Long day,” said Kairi, which wasn’t a lie. Everything was long now.

“Oh,” said Xion. Pause. “Your bed. It looks comfortable. Is it?”

Kairi blinked. Odd question. Nothing felt real, but Xion looked so _sad_. “It doesn’t _feel_ comfortable. Maybe tonight I’ll be lucky,” said Kairi, regretting her words as she chose them, “and it’ll prove me wrong.”

“Maybe,” Xion echoed, “tonight you’ll be lucky.”

 _Oh no oh shit oh_ “But I don’t know, nobody knows at all how comfortable it is. Probably very! Anyway, how’s your day? I’m good. Long day, but _good_ day. You know?”

“Kairi.”

“Xion. Hi.” Xion sat on the bed beside her now, staring at the blankets between her legs.

“If you don’t mind me saying...”

“I don’t!” said Kairi quickly.

“I don’t know how you stand this place,” said Xion.

“It takes time,” Kairi lied.

“So it gets better.”

“After a while,” Kairi lied.

“For you.” Xion looked away at the blank wall of Kair’s room. “I don’t think anybody here wants to talk to me. Or—” she wiped her eyes. “—I don’t know if I have anything to talk about with them.” She pressed her thighs against hers.

“ _We_ talk,” said Kairi. “Don’t we?” Skin so hot. Kairi felt the sweat between them.

“Yeah,” said Xion, “we do. Or you do. I don’t really say anything back, do I. I’m sorry for that. I—”

“—don’t even need to say sorry,” said Kairi. “I get it. Sometimes you just can’t talk about it.”

“I’ve got a lot of things I don’t want to talk about.”

Oh. God fucking damn it Xion’s thighs were so warm. Kairi hadn’t expected that, so unfair. Or maybe she had. I mean, _occasionally_ she’d expected it, but thighs hadn’t been the _focus_ of her imagination right then. But it was all just a _few_ times, not more than twice, or thrice, and anyway, the way that…

The leather gloves of Xion’s fingers clutched Kairi’s thigh and rested there for a moment. A...friendly moment. With friends. Just friends. In Kairi’s room. Alone, together.

Soakingly wet like she was in a nightmare, like Xion would notice at any moment that Kairi was a slut, and all the while thinking about the warmth of her thigh, the possessive feeling beneath Xion’s grip. Kairi snatched a glance at her, knowing she wouldn’t be caught, knowing Xion wouldn’t look back—

Her yellow eyes flashed. A smile to draw blood.

And before Kairi could say anything at all—though she wouldn’t have bothered to talk—she felt Xion’s lips pushing roughly against her, felt Xion’s hands snatch her wrists and push them down to the hard mansion bed.

Xion’s lips were nectarines—soft outside hiding a cruel of wooden core teeth. Kairi let them roam over her own lips, sampling her, trailing her cheeks, kissing her neck before biting viciously.

Perhaps she would draw blood. Perhaps she would suck Kairi dry right now, and perhaps they would both welcome it.

“You know,” said Xion between kisses, between pecks on the neck, between—oh. Oh no.

—between two hateful grabs of Kairi’s breasts.

“You _know_ ,” said Xion again, making Kairi’s head spin, making her feel like everything was looping and she was almost crazy, “that this is a mistake.”

_It’s not a mistake nothing is a mistake everything happens for a reason please kiss me again please_

“Kairi?” whispered Xion hoarsely. Every button of Kairi’s blouse was punctuated with a glance. The back of her bra was unhooked with confidence and a smile. “I want you to understand that it’s all your fault. I want you to let me in. I want you to _invite_ me and make a mistake. Because I’m horrible. Because I’m cruel. Because I’m exactly what I told Axel. Because—”

“Xion, no, it’s not a mistake, I—”

“You don’t know anything about me,” said Xion, gently pulling Kairi’s bra from her sweating breasts, “not really, so how could you know?”

and the bra came off and Xion pressed her rough lips against Kairi’s breast, sucking hard for one long moment before pausing, looking up at Kairi with curious yellow eyes.

“Not enough?” Blinking, eyes framed with black hair. Kairi gasped, smiled, took Xion’s hair in her hands and _pulled_.

“Give me more. I need more.”

“More?”

“Please,” said Kairi. So wet, yes, but. So….and she paused, tried to catch Xion’s expression. Unreachable. Why was that when they were both so clearly alone? “Fuck me,” Kairi begged.

Xion cackled, almost spoke—but instead beamed, locked eyes with Kairi.

and Xion whispered “I’ll show you more. Every centimeter of it.” The awful slurping sounds of tentacles, of all these horrors, slithering from Xion’s abdomen. “If you let me.”

So hopeful above Kairi. So hopeful in her smile, eyes just bright with sugary sweetness. Between Kairi’s thighs, beckoning hunger. Inside her skull a chaos of lost champions, friends long-gone. Worlds that would never again react soft beneath her feet. As above, so below.

“Give me,” and for a moment, Kairi thought about what she was going to agree to, about who she was speaking with, about herself.

Herself. _Give me a moment,_ thought Kairi.

But that moment passed oh so quickly. It would die writhing beneath their pleasure.


End file.
